Melissa Forziat

A former competitive gymnast and captain of the Brown University gymnastics team, Melissa Forziat's career began one semester when she realized she had no passion for the food prep work-study jobs she was doing and instead walked into the office of the sports marketing director and convinced him to create a work-study job for her in that department.

This role was the first of many she designed for herself. For her first "real" job with the 2006 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy, Forziat convinced the director of Press Operations to let her into the office and give her eight hours of work to do every day. When she flew to Italy and found her own accommodation, she had no official place in the headcount as staff, volunteer, or intern and expected to make photo copies as Olympically as possible. After a week, she was offered a paid Olympic role as a reporter, interviewing the alpine skiers who came down the slopes of Sestriere. Forziat took this expertise to roles with the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, BC and the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, as well.

Forziat talked the US Olympic Committee into creating a role for her in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center in the International Relations Department. For two years, she planned itineraries for and hosted every foreign delegation that came through the Colorado, ranging from Saudi Arabian princes to Latin American cycling coaches to an Algerian Olympic delegation. She helped execute two historic visits from Iranian athletic delegations, working with the US Department of State and Farsi interpreters to host the weightlifting and table tennis programs.

As a professional speaker, she blends her spirit of encouragement, Olympic-level thinking, the humor of improv, and her grounded practicality to help audiences everywhere reach for their better tomorrow. Her biggest accomplishment was returning to New Zealand - where she used to live - as a professional speaker to do her first international talk for the Bed & Breakfast Association New Zealand.