Doors Wide Open: Breaking Barriers and Building Culture 

By Melissa Davis

In honour of International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating the women at StellarAlgo who embody what our culture is all about, leading with purpose, championing diverse voices, and keeping the door open for others. Melissa Davis, Senior Director & Team Lead, Customer Success, shares how she built her career by creating opportunities for herself and for others, leading with authenticity, and what it really means to break a barrier.

A Career Forged by Chance and Curiosity 

Melissa’s path into the sports industry started the way many of the best stories do, unexpectedly. At a field hockey alumni event during her senior year of college, she was offered an internship in Sports Marketing, and eventually worked into a full-time role by graduation. After five years, Melissa felt the pull to grow. She ventured into tech spaces outside of sports, broadening her skills before eventually landing at StellarAlgo, where a LinkedIn connection turned out to be the perfect convergence of her two worlds: SaaS and sports.

Navigating Leadership in a Male-Dominated Space 

Melissa has never been a stranger to navigating gender inequity at the leadership level, and she has lived that reality firsthand. At her first job out of college, she was leading a department surrounded by roughly ten male VPs. 

“It’s hard to build relationships when people don’t really understand how to communicate with you. There are barriers that you don’t always see coming.” 

Rather than stepping back, she stepped up. Melissa launched a podcast dedicated to interviewing women in mid-management and director-level roles across industries, because she noticed a gap. 

“You hear from the CEOs on these big podcasts, but you never hear from the director level, the VP level, the manager. Those were the stories I wanted to tell.” 

At StellarAlgo, the experience has been different. Melissa reports to a woman, something she doesn’t take for granted. 

“It’s fun to see that there’s something you can aspire to achieve here. I’ve always been a huge proponent of diversity, of thought, of ethnicity, of gender. It builds the most complete organization.” 

Breaking Barriers, and Leaving the Door Open 

In honour of International Women’s Day, we asked Melissa what breaking barriers means to her personally. Her answer was rooted in something deeper than career milestones. Her parents are immigrants. Neither of them could have mapped out the career their daughter would build, because that world simply wasn’t in their frame of reference. 

“Every role I’ve gotten, every step I’ve taken, they say: I don’t understand how any of this happened, but you seem to be making it work.” 

That context shapes how Melissa thinks about what it actually means to break a barrier. 

“There are people who open the door for themselves and then slam it right behind them. They want to be the only one at the top. I’ve worked for people like that but if you break a barrier and then go and repair it so everyone else is still barred from entry, did you really break it?” 

For Melissa, breaking barriers means paving the way. It means looking back and making sure others can follow. 

The Lacrosse Coach and the Leadership Parallel 

Outside of StellarAlgo, Melissa coaches Women’s Lacrosse, both at her local high school and for the Portuguese national team. It’s a commitment she keeps not out of obligation, but because she sees it as an investment in the next generation of leaders. 

“I’m investing in the future of who could potentially be our next employee. The future of our company, the future of other companies.” 

The lessons Melissa teaches on the field translate seamlessly to the workplace. Resilience, adaptability, and finding your role within a team aren’t just athletic principles. 

“You might be the hero on one team and just a basic contributor on another. You have to find your role, figure out what you’re good at, and contribute in the best way possible. When all the puzzle pieces fit, it’s really beautiful.” 

She’s also learned that motivation isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some people grow up advocating loudly for themselves. Others need someone in their corner not just to see what they can’t yet see in themselves but to say it out loud. 

A Culture Where Every Voice Belongs 

Creating psychological safety isn’t a buzzword for Melissa, it’s a practice. She’s built her leadership style around an open-door philosophy, where ideas can flow freely without fear of judgment or dismissal. 

“You spend so much of your life working. If you feel confined, if you feel like you can’t say this or do that, you don’t feel comfortable and you lose your ability to really contribute.” 

She’s particularly focused on helping people self-advocate, because she knows how easy it is to underestimate your own contributions. 

“A lot of people don’t cheerlead themselves enough because they think it makes them look overconfident. But sometimes they really did something above and beyond, and they should be excited about it.” 

Her role, as she sees it, is partly to hold that mirror up for people who haven’t learned to hold it for themselves. 

The Motto She Lives By 

Ask Melissa what lasting impact she wants to leave in her career, on her athletes, and on the people who report to her and she doesn’t hesitate: 

“Live and operate in a way that if others were to talk poorly about you, nobody would believe them.” 

In a world where the current generation of young people is hungry for authenticity and connection, that kind of investment stands out. Melissa’s approach to leadership, rooted in empathy, earned through experience, and always oriented toward the people behind her, is exactly the kind of culture that makes a company worth building. 

At StellarAlgo, that culture isn’t accidental. It’s people like Melissa who make it real. 

 

More fans. Better Engagement.

Talk with Us