About
Built for businesses navigating growth and change
Growth often reveals the gap between business ambition and brand perception. As businesses evolve, positioning, alignment, and brand clarity do not always keep up. True Story exists to help close that gap.
With more than 20 years across brand strategy, business leadership, and growth, Melissa brings together strategic brand expertise, commercial thinking, and leadership experience shaped through work with brands including Nkuku, L’Occitane and Neal’s Yard Remedies.
Working alongside founders and leadership teams, Melissa partners with businesses navigating growth, change, and transition while creating meaningful long-term value. Her approach is thoughtful, collaborative, and grounded in honest conversations that help businesses sharpen positioning, align decision-making, and create stronger foundations for what comes next.
Our Perspective
We believe brand strategy should shape more than perception.
The strongest businesses create alignment between what they stand for, what they build, and the experiences they create for customers.
When business ambition, product, customer experience, and brand strategy move in the same direction, decisions become clearer, teams move with greater focus, and growth becomes more intentional.
For founders, that often means protecting the purpose and ambition that shaped the business in the first place. For leadership teams, it means creating the clarity needed to scale without losing what matters.
How We Work
We believe strong partnerships create stronger outcomes. Our work is grounded in thoughtful collaboration, honest conversations, and a long-term view of growth.
Strategic Partnership
We work closely with leadership teams as a trusted strategic partner, bringing continuity, context, and experienced perspective through periods of growth and change.
Honest Perspective
We ask difficult questions, challenge assumptions where needed, and create clarity through thoughtful conversations. Strong positioning starts with honest thinking.
Purposeful Growth
We believe strong brands balance commercial ambition with long-term value. We help businesses build meaningful differentiation and create growth designed to last.
Building Brands with Purpose
Purpose has become a bigger conversation in business and branding, but for Melissa, purpose has never been about statements or campaigns.
She believes the strongest brands build purpose into the decisions they make every day. What a business stands for should be reflected in its products, customer experience, culture, and commercial priorities.
Purpose becomes meaningful when what a business believes is reflected in what it builds and how it grows.
As expectations evolve, businesses increasingly need brands built with intention. For Melissa, sustainable growth means balancing commercial success with meaningful impact, creating brands that remain relevant while contributing something valuable to customers, communities, and the people behind them.
The strongest brands align commercial ambition with meaningful impact.
Trusted by ambitious brands and leadership teams
We partner with ambitious businesses navigating growth and change, building trusted relationships that combine strategic challenge with shared ambition and long-term thinking.
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Brand Strategy, Marketing Activation & Senior Leadership at Nkuku
Selected Experience
Brand Thinking for a Changing World
True Story Insights explores the evolving world of brand-building. We look beyond trends to examine the behaviours, ideas and cultural shifts shaping how brands grow and communicate.
Ready for stronger positioning and clearer direction?
Whether navigating growth, investment, or change, let’s start with a conversation.
This is where your True Story begins.
Prefer email?
Contact Melissa directly at hello@truestoryconsultancy.com