Melissa Rivers
Melissa Rivers is the Executive Director for the Crossroads Coalition. Crossroads is a 10 county regional partnership whose mission is to promote broad based development in East Arkansas through education, community, leadership and economic development.
Prior to joining the Crossroads Coalition in July of 2008, Melissa served as the Director of Regionalism and Workforce Development for the Memphis Regional Chamber. During her six year tenure, she developed and built a 53 county, three state partnership that was focused on regional product development and marketing. The partnership raised almost $1 million in grants and investments to conduct unprecedented research and marketing for the region and in the areas of site identification, workforce quality and availability, target industry analysis and strategic infrastructure planning.
In her capacity as Director of Workforce development, Melissa developed strategic initiatives tailored to meet the needs of local employers and better serve the needs of the local workforce.
Melissa is a graduate of Union University in Jackson, TN with a bachelor's in Communication and Marketing. She has worked in the Chamber / Economic Development industry for over 10 years.