Melissa Reed is founder and CEO of Collective Efforts, a collaboration of independent, multidisciplinary women-owned government relations and creative communications company partners working together to support clients and creatively tackle our biggest shared challenges.In serving Fortune 500 companies, local governments, trade associations, venture capital, start-ups, small businesses and nonprofit clients for over two decades at various levels of government, Melissa is known as an impactful and dynamic advocate and policy expert. While serving under three mayors of the City of Minneapolis, Melissa secured over $150 million in capital investment in the city’s vital infrastructure and led public policy and lobbying efforts on issues related to public finance, capital investment, transportation, jobs and economic development, public safety and criminal justice reform, and regulatory matters at the state and federal levels. As Senior Principal with the firm Park Street Public, Melissa supported clients in developing strategic approaches to achieve legislative, regulatory, and procurement goals across the policy and political spectrum. Melissa’s first role in politics was as a long-serving high school intern in the Saint Paul District Office of Senator Paul D. Wellstone, and Collective Efforts was founded in the great Minnesota value he shared, that “we all do better when we all do better.”Melissa holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison