Melandri is the founder and president of Human Foundation, a research center that promotes impact economics and finance, social, cultural and environmental innovation. Human Foundation helps build social innovation and ESG finance projects, and offers boutique consultancy for the design and planning of public-private partnerships aimed at generating social, environmental and cultural value.

She is also founder and ambassador of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG), a movement that brings the world’s top ESG finance and impact investment organizations together, across over 40 countries. Melandri is the chair of its Italian node, the Social Impact Agenda for Italy (SIA), an association of 25 organizations including investors, social enterprises, market builders and philanthropic institutions.

Melandri represented Italy in the G7 Task Force on Impact Investment, and from 2012 to 2022 she was president of the Fondazione MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts. Under her leadership, Maxxi has more than tripled its visitors, budget and works in the collection, and has built numerous international collaborations. She also launched the Grande Maxxi project linked to the New European Bauhaus.

A two-time Minister of Culture between 1998 and 2001, as well as Minister of Youth Policy and Sports from 2006 to 2008, she raised the share of public resources allocated to culture to the highest level ever.

She is a frequent contributor to several news outlets, including Huffington Post and La Repubblica – Affari e Finanza, where she writes the monthly column “Impact Economy.”

She is the author of several publications, including the first book in Italy on the greenhouse effect, published in 1989. More recently, she published a short nonfiction work on Impact Economy titled Come ripartire [How to Start Over] (il Melangolo, 2022).