Charlie Melichar is a senior consultant in strategic communications at Marts & Lundy. For the past 15 years, he has been immersed in the field of nonprofit communications, serving as an adviser and thought leader for colleges and universities and the professional organizations that support them.

Most recently, Melichar served as associate vice chancellor of development and alumni relations communications at Vanderbilt University. His has served on the CASE Commission on Communications and Marketing, CASE District III Board of Directors and co-chaired the Task Force on Social Media. He is a past chair and current member of the Executive Committee for the Public Relations Society of America's Counselors to Higher Education section, which is focused on senior leaders in higher education public relations.

At Vanderbilt, Melichar took the lead in enhancing the university's communications in support of the completion of its successful $1.94 billion fundraising campaign. He merged the university and medical center development and alumni communications teams and redesigned project management processes to achieve a more strategic, data-oriented approach. He partnered with the public affairs office to develop a university-wide strategic communication planning process and design an integrated approach to communications across Vanderbilt's graduate and professional schools.

Prior to his work at Vanderbilt, he was vice president for public relations and communications at Colgate University from 2005 to 2010. During that time he led the communications efforts for a $400 million fundraising campaign. He came to Colgate in 2003 as director of media relations. He previously worked in a similar position at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, before being named director of news and information.

In his early career, Melichar worked for PR Newswire, a news service distribution company, and ProfNet, a subsidiary service that links academic experts to journalists.