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Melanie Francis is Vice President and Chief of Staff in the Office of the CEO at Akamai, where she serves as a key enabler and facilitator acting with, and on behalf of, the CEO. She maintains and executes the internal governance operating model while also providing operational and communications leadership at the senior executive level.

Francis joined Akamai in 2014, when she initiated Akamai’s change management organization. Prior to becoming Chief of Staff for Akamai’s CEO, she served the company across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including organizational change and transformation, business operations, marketing, and software development.

She has built a 25-year career as a catalyst for change in some of the world’s largest and best-known technology companies. She has spent the majority of her career focused on the information security industry, applying her expertise at the intersection of people, process and technology. She has a proven record of accomplishment in delivering successful business outcomes across a wide portfolio of technical and organizational transformations.

Before joining Akamai in 2014, she spent 12 years at Symantec, pioneering new roles in strategy, operations and marketing. She began her professional career as a software engineer for GTE, where she designed and developed communications software for the U.S. Department of Defense and also developed commercially-sold communications systems and encryption technology. She also served in product management and marketing roles for GTE CyberTrust and Baltimore Technologies.

A certified change management professional (CCMPTM), Francis is a founding member of the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) and serves as President of its New England chapter. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science in the Honors Program at Stonehill College, and an MBA from the Clark University Graduate School of Management.