Melanie Charlton

Mel is the CEO and Founder of Brllnt with over a decade of experience leading business development and consulting on strategies for clients including the ACLU, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, George Washington University, and Asurity.

Mel founded Brllnt in 2014 on the belief that collaborative design has the power to build dreams and create solutions to the world’s biggest problems. Prior to leading Brllnt, Mel spent the early part of her career learning design and creative strategy from some of the world’s top creatives at Weber Shandwick and Erwin Pendland, where she served large brands including the Kellogg Foundation, BAE Systems, NATO, UN, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the US Army. Mel served on AIGA-DC’s Board of Directors as Mentoring Chair from 2018 - 2020.

For nearly a decade, she has been leading design teams, and she was recognized as a DC FemTech Powerful Woman Designer in 2016. In 2015, Mel co-founded Unleaded, a monthly design thinking MeetUp and passion project with the goal of connecting DC’s design community through creative problem-solving.