About Us

Melanie Kesner is a policy strategist, coalition builder, and lifelong organizer who believes that policy made without the people closest to the problem isn't really policy — it's guesswork. For over a decade, her work has been to close that gap.

 Melanie founded Mel Rose Consulting in 2022 after serving as Public Policy Director at the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado, where she directed a statewide policy agenda across civil rights, housing, and economic and criminal justice reform — managing policy staff, coalitions, lobbyists, and government relations.

In that role, she founded and chaired the Colorado Clean Slate Coalition — a 50-member alliance of advocacy, legal, and community partners that successfully advanced record-sealing policy reform. Her legislative reports and advocacy toolkits have been used by lawmakers and partner organizations across the state.

Her organizing roots run deeper still. Over the past decade, Melanie has engaged tens of thousands of Coloradans through statewide health policy campaigns, trained residents from rural and frontier communities in legislative advocacy and storytelling, mobilized young voters in Get Out The Vote campaigns, organized lobby days and hearings in DC, and served as a Legislative Aide to the Colorado State Senate during a Joint Budget Committee term.

 Melanie holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Colorado Denver and dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in International Studies and Religious Studies from the University of Denver, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She is also a graduate of Emerge Colorado's Signature Candidate Training program.