Dr. Melissa Sassi is a venture builder, super connector, and highly regarded tech consultant who serves as a catalyst and accelerant for enterprise partnerships, corporate innovation, and growth within the tech scaleup community. Dr. Sassi can be found growing people and programs inside of countries, communities, and companies. As IBM recognized Dr. Sassi with their coveted Blue Core award, reserved for the top 1% of IBMers worldwide, senior executives began referring to her as a Wild Duck, a transformational leader with an innate ability to land outrageous ideas with game-changing impact. Dr. Sassi has developed 250 tech executives in 80 countries resulting in $500M in capital raised and $2.7B+ in value for investors in the last five years. Dr. Sassi runs a venture studio, sits on several prestigious company boards, and frequently presents at noteworthy events by the United Nations, the World Bank, big tech, and other private and public sector entities. Dr. Sassi’s doctoral thesis led to the creation of the world’s first digital skills standard endorsed by IEEE, largest global engineering association. Vint Cerf, the Father of the Internet and Chief Internet Strategist at Google once called Dr. Sassi a digital inclusion trailblazer. She is ex-Microsoft, IBM, BlackRock, and Goldman Sachs, experiences that informed her ability to foster ecosystem partnerships that drive innovation within large enterprises and growth for tech scaleups. Her most recent magic includes creating FastPass, an initiative sponsored by IBM that includes 200 of the world’s leading banks and 40 data & AI, security, and fintech ventures. FastPass helps scaleups with bank readiness and being seen by those who matters most. Banks, in turn, have their own fast pass to digital transformation solutions to help them innovate faster. She is growing FastPass to include another 50 scaleups. Reach out if you are in fintech or banking and looking for a fast pass to growth and innovation. She is known for being a sought-after creator, maker, doer, thought leader, and inspirational keynote speaker. Feel free to DM for collab opportunities - partnerships, thought leadership, speaking engagements, etc.!