Founder/Principal Consultant - Melody Chen
Executive HR Leader | Careers & Leadership Coach | Trusted Business Partner.
Melody is an executive HR leader and leadership coach with over 17 years of experience helping founders and business leaders build organisations that scale.
Having partnered with high-growth startups, global technology companies and world-class organisations, she brings a unique blend of strategic thinking, commercial acumen and hands-on execution.
She works with CEOs and leadership teams to solve business challenges through people—strengthening leadership capability, organisational effectiveness, talent strategy and culture to enable sustainable growth.
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Melody Chen
HR Experience that Helps Businesses Scale
Throughout her career, Melody has partnered with founders and senior leaders to build organisations that can grow sustainably through every stage of business.
At McKinsey & Company, she led regional recruiting across 7 countries during a period of rapid expansion, helping to double the Strategy and Implementation consulting workforce in Southeast Asia. She introduced innovative talent strategies, programmes and approaches to hire exceptional talent while maintaining McKinsey's rigorous assessment standards. This experience shaped her deep expertise in identifying leadership potential and making high-quality talent decisions.
She later joined Aspire, one of Southeast Asia's leading fintech companies, as their first Head of People, where she built the People function from the ground up. Partnering closely with the founders, she supported the company's growth from Series A to Series C, scaling the organisation by more than 4x while strengthening leadership capability, organisational culture and the people foundations needed for sustainable growth.
As Director, HR Business Partner (APAC) at Medallia, a global customer experience SaaS company, Melody partnered senior business leaders through organisational restructuring across the region. She led strategic APAC-wide people initiatives that aligned organisations, leadership and talent with evolving business priorities.
Melody has advised venture-backed startups and growing businesses, including Aspire, Wati, Propseller, Choco and SMEs such as Arte Oros & ATP.
Careers and Leadership Coaching
In 2025, Melody launched her coaching practice after spending the previous 7 years coaching aspiring management consultants alongside her full-time career. Drawing on her experience in HR, talent acquisition, leadership, and executive coaching, she expanded POP Partners' mission to help mid-career professionals and leaders navigate career and leadership transitions with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose.
Melody believes that meaningful growth goes beyond acquiring knowledge and skills—it requires greater self-awareness, challenging limiting assumptions, and making the identity shifts needed for the next stage of one's career or leadership journey. Through careers and leadership coaching, she partners with clients to uncover what truly matters, navigate complex decisions, and grow into the leader and professional they aspire to become.
Background
Melody holds a Global MBA from IE Business School in Madrid and graduated from the esteemed Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto with a degree in International Bachelor of Business Administration (Honours). Additionally, she obtained a postgraduate diploma in HR and Talent Management from Singapore HR Institute. Due to her diverse background (grew up in China, Singapore, and Canada; studied in Singapore, Canada, France, and Spain), Melody brings not only her HR experience and expertise but also a global perspective and cultural understanding that extend beyond her focus markets in Southeast Asia.