About
Melissa Levin is a natural-born storyteller and driven entrepreneur with 10 years of experience in brand development, integrated marketing, content creation, digital media, and business strategy. Melissa not only understands the value of community, she’s built her career supporting audiences and brands at scale.
After obtaining her undergraduate degree in Journalism from Indiana University and finishing law school at Loyola University Chicago, Melissa decided to forgo the traditional path. Alongside her business partner, Melissa dove headfirst into a passion project aimed at creating a platform for college students to connect, share, and explore fashion at campuses around the world all while growing their skills sets, network, and confidence. And so, College Fashionista was born.
As a founding member of the team, Melissa was hyper-focused on servicing the community and driving awareness for the brand while strategically evolving College Fashionista’s unique brand positioning. What started as a way to showcase fashion on five campuses grew into an international community of over 100,000 young millennial and Gen-Z individuals attending over 2,000 international campuses around the world with millions of followers across the brand’s digital channels. In growing and servicing the community, Melissa worked with partners such as Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative to support the advancement of women through education. Melissa's business acumen and educational background allowed her to lead in the acquisition of College Fashionista to Clique Brands in 2016.
Most recently as Program Director for the brand, Melissa lead and worked cross-functionally with marketing, social, and content teams with that same audience first approach. While steering the ship to execute on the vision and strategy, the audience across channels more than doubled year-over-year, social marketing initiatives consistently resulted in industry leading engagement rates, and the launch of several experiential verticals garnered over 100MM+ impressions each, establishing the brand as a leader in the marketplace.
Melissa also lead on the strategy and launch of the brand’s digital education platform, which offered career training materials and videos to members to supplement their traditional academic coursework. By partnering with universities and industry experts alike to teach everything from networking to InDesign, Melissa created a multi-channel program that supported the needs of both the audience and industry, creating a pipeline of well-rounded, confident young individuals entering the workforce. During her time with the company, Clique Brands was recognized as Digiday’s Most Innovative Publisher and Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies.
All these experiences have ultimately honed in on Melissa’s professional expertise and personal passion for building and scaling empowered communities and mission-driven brands.
Portfolio
Digital Strategy
Balancing her innate creativity with an aptitude for numbers, Melissa has managed the content strategy that has propelled brands and scaled engaged audiences across platforms.
-Created and managed brand voice and identity across channels including social, digital, and marketing.
-Ideated first-in-class social content franchises with industry leading engagement rates
Brand Development
Melissa spearheaded the launch of College Fashionista’s digital education platform and fellowship program, creating a multimedia curriculum aimed at evolving the brand and empowering members to achieve the career goals.
Experiential Marketing
Melissa has been integral in creating immersive brand experiences with strategic partners to bring brands to life IRL and engage audiences in creative activations. Highlights include:
-The Clubhouse: an annual summer pop-up workspace in SoHo that brought together College Fashionista’s community and key sponsors with creative integrations, panels, and events. Partners included Sephora, Bumble, and American Eagle Outfitters.
-C Future Conference: a full day conference in partnership with FIT full of insightful conversations with industry leaders from the fashion, media, and tech industries. Speakers included representatives from Revlon, Goop, Vogue, and Girlfriend Collective.
