Founder and CEO of Growth Mindset Communications
Melissa Franklin is Founder and CEO of Growth Mindset Communications, and is a marketing and communications professional with over 25 years of experience. Ms. Franklin was recently awarded a Pritzker Fellowship on behalf of First 5 LA, making her one of 13 Pritzker National Child and Infant Collaborative Fellows across the country. She is tasked with helping coordinate Los Angeles County’s efforts to reduce Black infant and maternal mortality rates through communications and countywide stakeholder engagement, including building a county-wide coalition of public agencies, community-based organizations and philanthropic interests. The initiative is led by the LA County Department of Public Health in partnership with First 5 LA.
As a Black mother of two girls, now ages 9 and 12, who were born severely premature, she has a deep connection to the issue. Ms. Franklin has also consulted for Compton Unified School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and Federally Qualified Health Centers. Ms. Franklin is currently a doctoral candidate in Organizational Change and Leadership in University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. Her doctoral studies focus on organizational development, systems change, and helping organizations counter the impact of impact of implicit bias and negative attitudes against Blacks on outcomes for Black people, in particular in the K-12 system. She holds a master’s in business administration from Loyola Marymount University. Melissa specializes in reframing wacked narratives and inspiring people and organizations to see the possibility for positive change, and then go after it—together.