Meet Melisa López Franzen

Melisa is the current Executive Director of Government and Community Relations at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. In this role, her team’s work includes reinforcing the distinct value of the University’s five campuses and other locations statewide by highlighting the U of M’s mission-oriented service as a public university, and its positive economic and research impact to the state and country as one of America’s leading research universities.

Professional Experience

Prior to this as a State Senator, she was Vice Chair on the Health and Human Services Finance and Policy Committee, and the Transportation Finance Committee. Melisa was also a member of the Task Force on Medical Cannabis Therapeutic Research and has previously served on the Tax Committee, Higher Education Finance Committee, K-12 Education Policy Committee, and the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board.

She is the co-founder of NewPublica, a public relations and strategic communications firm where she previously served as president, with a focus on the evolving mainstream and multicultural marketplace. She helped to launched Cafe Libre, a Spanish language public affairs weekly show, with Univision Minnesota channel 13. She was also an active member of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce. 

As an attorney at Target Corporation for eight years, she held several roles, titles, and responsibilities in Target’s Real Estate, Government Affairs, Labor & Employee Relations, and Community Relations divisions.

Education

She holds a Master of Public Policy with a concentration in Economic and Community Development from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and holds a J.D. from Hamline University’s School of Law.

Melisa’s Awards and Roots

Before making Minnesota home, Melisa was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where she stayed active in her community by volunteering, participating in Girl Scouts (Brownie, Junior, Cadette, and Senior) levels and a silver award recipient. She also was an active 4-H club member attending the Citizenship Washington Focus program at the nation’s Capitol and the International Exchange Program with Costa Rica. 

During her undergraduate studies, Melisa served as Student Body President at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, as well as a tutor for Upward Bound TRIO Program. After receiving a research assistantship to work for Dr. Samuel L. Meyers at the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice, she moved to Minnesota to attend the Humphrey Institute at 21 years old to pursue her graduate studies. Later, she enrolled at Hamline University School of Law where she was on the Journal of Public Law & Policy and co-founded an endowment fund for the Latino Law Student Association. 

Today, she is part of the HOPE Binational Fellowship Program, an executive leadership program for outstanding Latina professionals, and was selected nationwide to join the Class of 2018 Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership amongst 24 national leaders. In April of 2020, she was selected for the Minnesota Young American Leaders Program, part of the Harvard Business School, where she worked with leaders from across the country on innovative, cross-sector ideas to benefit the public good. 

She is the former President of the Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association and Regional Vice President of the Hispanic National Bar Association and a 2020 HNBA Top Lawyer Under 40 Award recipient. She formerly served on the Board of Directors for the Girl Scouts of Minnesota and Wisconsin River Valleys as well as the Comunidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio (CLUES). She was named to the Twin Cities Business 100 List for 2024.