Melinda Emerson, known as "SmallBizLady," is one of America’s leading small business experts. She is a seasoned entrepreneur, professional speaker, social media strategist and small business coach and the Startup Columnistfor Small Business Trends.

Emerson began her professional career in television as a producer at WPXI, NBC 10, and WPVI-TV. Within five years, inspired by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions, Inc., she left television to pursue her entrepreneurial dream to create an award-winning production company. As the founder and CEO of Quintessence Multimedia, Melinda has created productions for clients such as Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Comcast and Radio-One. Melinda hosts Smallbizchat,a weekly talk show on Twitter. [4]

Melinda has lectured on small business at The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Rosemont College and for clients, including IKEA, GlaxoSmithKline, National Association of Women Business Owners, PA Governor’s Conference for Women, U.S. Department of Labor, International Association of Business Communicators, the Small Business Administration, and the Center for Women’s Business Research. Her areas of expertise include small business start-up, recession-proof marketing and social media strategy.

Melinda has been featured on NBC Nightly News, as well as theWall Street Journal ,*U.S. News & World Report and Black Enterprise . Emerson has also won numerous awards including Top 50 Women in Business in Pennsylvania, Top 30 Leaders of the future by Ebony Magazine *, and the National Association of Women Business Owners’ Woman of Distinction Award. Forbesnamed her one of Top 10 Tech and Business Experts for 2017.

Emerson’s first book,Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business That Workshas been released in March 2010 by Adams Media. She has also recorded an audio CD, 10Things You Must Never Forget in Business. ^[2] She is also the author of the ebookHow To Become a Social Media Ninja, andFix Your Business.

In 1994, Melinda received a Bachelor of Arts in Communication studies from Virginia Tech. [2]