Melissa Orozco
Founder, CEO
& Chief Impact Strategist
“This is just the way we’ve always done things” is not a phrase in Melissa Orozco’s vernacular.
“Valued for pushing boundaries that challenge the status quo and deliver impactful outcomes, she relishes the opportunity to help her clients approach complex issues unconventionally and creatively. Though her big thinking ideas are occasionally met with client hesitation to step outside of the corporate comfort zone, clients are always delighted when they see them come to life. By the time her strategic ideas, and campaign results start rolling in, they’re full-blown converts to her strategic process.”
– written by the division directors at Yulu
Melissa’s PR career started over a decade ago working with luxury lifestyle brands at Quinn & Co, one of New York City’s most creative PR agencies. New York will always be her second home (New Mexico was her first) but in 2008 she made the move to Vancouver, British Columbia – a city fast becoming the global epicenter for social innovation.
Energized by the “good business” revolution starting to happen, Melissa founded Yulu Public Relations, a PR agency for socially innovative organizations. Once Yulu built a reputation as the de facto leaders of social impact PR, Melissa started to rally support for an evolution of public relations toward greater transparency and tangible impact. Enter Impact Relations — the discipline of using powerful stories to drive behavior that has attracted change-makers from across North America.
Notable milestones in Melissa’s career include being named one of Real Leaders’ 100 Women In Impact in 2021, ranked by Marketing Magazine as a 30 Under 30 marketing pro, serving as Chair of Communications for the Urban Land Institute of BC, and helping to develop global campaigns for change makers like Fuck Cancer, which earned her agency an International Stevie Award for Best Global Social Good PR Campaign of 2012. With World Housing, she launched a PR strategy for the world’s first one-for-one home gifting model, which resulted in more than 120 media hits and homes for more than 2,000 Cambodians.
Tied strongly to her native New Mexican roots, you can often find Melissa cooking up something spicy with her family. And when she’s not in the office or in the kitchen, she can be found racing a sailboat, skiing down a mountain, or exploring new trails with her dogs.