Melissa Kelly has over 15 years of experience in early childhood focused on design, implementation and workforce strengthening of parent education, early learning and community engagement programming across education, social protection, child protection and health sectors in Central America, East and Southern Africa, Eastern Europe, and South and Southeast Asia. She served on the Executive Group of the ECD Action Network (ECDAN) from 2017-2020,  was the chair of the Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC) from 2016-2019 and co-leads the Nurturing Care Framework Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group with UNICEF and WHO partners. Melissa’s previous roles include Director of Program Strategy and ECD Senior Advisor at ChildFund International; ECD Specialist at Save the Children US; ECD Program Manager for Save the Children Mozambique; Project Director at the New York City Department of Education and Program Assistant at the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE). Melissa holds a master’s degree in International Educational Development from Columbia University’s Teachers College.