Melissa Garcia

Chief Operating Officer

Melissa Garcia is Chief Operating Officer at Drug Policy Alliance. Melissa has over 20 years of management experience focusing on building systems and enhancing the infrastructure of organizations that support field-building, policy change and community-building. Mostly recently, Melissa served as the Vice-President for the Reproductive Health Investors Alliance (Rhia) and before that as the Senior Director of Operations and Finance at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice where she was responsible for operations, compliance, human resources, and finance.

Melissa is most proud of her work working alongside parks stewards and volunteers when she served as the Director of the Catalyst Program, a community-grounded leadership program administered by Partnerships for Parks/City Parks Foundation that focuses on environmental resiliency and community stewardship of waterfront park communities. Melissa also worked at the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service, as a policy advocate, researcher, and program administrator while she pursued her graduate degree in non-profit management from the NYU Wagner School of Public Service.

Melissa is a graduate of the Coro NY Immigrant Civic Leadership Program (2014), Rockwood Leadership Institute’s Heart of Black Leadership Pilot Program (2021) and Art of Leadership (2016), and the Center for Creative Leadership’s Looking Glass Leadership Program (2021) and she has served as a Commissioner for the NYC Women’s Issues Committee (2009-2013), Board Chair of Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and a Finance Committee Chair for La Colmena, NYC.