In this episode of Founders, Future, host Jae Encarnacion sits down with Melissa Dawn Simkins, CEO of Velvet Suite and hailed as the "First Lady of Personal Branding." Melissa shares her transformative journey from feeling marginalized in her youth to founding an Inc. 5000 award-winning EdTech company that’s redefined leadership development for Fortune 500 giants like Procter & Gamble and the NFL. Her revolutionary Athleteership™ methodology—where elite athletic mindset meets leadership mastery—solves a critical pain point: traditional leadership training is broken, and burnout is at an all-time high.

Melissa reveals how Velvet Suite’s pivot from service-based to content-driven solutions (like their MVP Accelerator course and Flamekeepers Journal app) aligns with today’s demand for agile, purpose-driven leaders. With 96% of clients coming from referrals, she unpacks the challenges of scaling predictability in a post-pandemic world and why "leaving it better than you found it" is the ultimate metric for legacy. A masterclass in reinvention, resilience, and the neuroscience of high performance.