Melanie Sany is an EDC Vice President, leader of the Global Youth and Workforce Transformation Team, and Co-Lead of EDC’s Work Transformation Area growth strategy. For over 25 years, she has designed, steered, and assessed education and workforce development initiatives across over 25 countries, with a sustained focus on expanding opportunities for young people. She specializes in co-creating national and regional workforce strategies, strengthening governance and financing systems, and mobilizing large-scale public and private investment. Across her work, she brings a distinctive blend of public- and private-sector perspectives and deep expertise in systems strengthening, social innovation, entrepreneurship, and workforce development.

Melanie leads initiatives that strengthen education and workforce systems and expand future-ready employment opportunities for young people. She serves as the architect of future-ready education and skills roadmaps and multisector education-to-employment initiatives that prepare young people for emerging, resilient, and green-economy livelihoods. Around the world, she partners with ministries of education, labor, and finance; TVET authorities; multilateral institutions; foundations; and private-sector actors.

Melanie has overseen multi-country portfolios spanning future workforce readiness, secondary education, TVET reform, and tertiary education transformation, with particular emphasis on reaching young people facing barriers to education, training, and employment. A signature achievement is Our World, Our Work, a 10-year initiative she launched in 2022 to support one million young people—60 percent women, including youth not in education, employment, or training—in accessing climate-resilient livelihoods and green jobs. Grounded in labor market and skills assessments across Africa and Asia, the initiative has already engaged 250,000 youth and informed national reform efforts.

Melanie holds an MBA from Audencia Nantes School of Management and an MA from Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, and is fluent in French and English.