Who We Are

SSW was founded with the mission of helping businesses build relationships to fuel their growth.

Melanie Ekeland, principal of SSW, provides industry-wide expertise across Financial, Healthcare, Technology, Energy, Retail sectors & more. Melanie brings more than 20 years of corporate contracts experience for both the client and supplier. She brings diverse knowledge and expertise, consistent communication, fiscal responsibility, and disciplined process to organizations across all industries. From smaller scale to very large complex business transactions, she has completed successful contract negotiations with a partnership relationship result.  

Her demonstrated track record of leading successful initiatives is grounded in collaboration with key contributors, understanding their goals, and great communication. The end result means attaining financial, operational, business and risk objectives.

 
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I love building business and the relationships which fuel their growth. I have the passion and patience to author and negotiate contractual terms and conditions which foster quick partnerships and lasting relationships. One thing I’ve learned along the way is it’s best to love what you do, have a sense of humor and listen well. Upon completion of law school, I accepted a position with DST Systems’ procurement team in Kansas City, creating and negotiating complex vendor agreements. I later accepted a position as Operations Manager at DST Worldwide Services where I reported directly to the business unit’s President and together we built a multi-country thriving overseas operation which employed over 2000 associates.

This operations tenure laid the groundwork for me to ultimately step into my role as Vice President of Client Operations at Lockpath. My responsibilities spanned all in-house contract negotiations, privacy and corporate policy creation, drafting basic and complex software, services, SOW and NDA agreements. To complete these agreements, I worked closely with our client’s procurement, stakeholder, general counsel and outside legal teams as each particular client was structured. 

Then to round everything out from a corporate governance aspect, I managed our Lockpath vendor contracts and risk management, as well as relationships of the channel partner program. As a part of Lockpath’s executive team I was deeply involved in the company’s M&A activities as the owners prepared the organization to be acquired by NAVEX Global. 

I started SSW Solutions as a way to continue my passion for Sales Operations, Contract Negotiations and Corporate Governance, Risk and Compliance.