Melissa Burdick spent 10 years at Amazon, playing a key role in launching the e-commerce giant’s packaged goods, health and beauty businesses. But in 2015, she received a cancer diagnosis, which led her to reassess her life and take a risk after recovery to launch Pacvue.

It couldn’t have been a better time to launch an enterprise software solution that automates and optimizes e-commerce operations and advertising, as retail media was poised for a takeoff well beyond Amazon.

Her experience with Amazon—where fellow veterans were leaving to work on retail media at such places as Walmart, Instacart and Kroger—was invaluable. “I knew them all,” Burdick said. “I was able to get the retailers on board, and the brands on board.”

Pacvue, acquired in a nine-figure deal by Assembly in 2021, works with marketers such as Unilever and Coca-Cola Co. and agency groups including GroupM.

As president and co-founder, Burdick has launched the first API integration with Sam’s Club’s Members Access Platform Partners Club and partnerships with Kroger Precision Marketing, DoorDash and Albertson’s Media Collective, among others. In all, Pacvue works with 40 retail media networks, plus dozens more thanks to work with aggregators including Criteo and Publicis Groupe’s CitrusAD.

What advice would you give your younger self? 

First, I would have told my younger self to take more risks. Luckily, I took the risk to start Pacvue, but I had the desire to leave my corporate job much earlier to do my own thing. It was easy to remain in status quo versus venture into the unknown, but perhaps I would have started earlier had I acted on taking a risk sooner. Two, travel more internationally, especially before starting a family. And three, seek a mentor—especially when first starting a business.

What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken? 

Starting my own company.

If you weren’t doing your current job, what would you be doing and why? 

I would start a program for women’s mentorship. There has been nothing more rewarding than the times I’ve been able to make a difference in other people’s lives through sharing my learnings from becoming an entrepreneur. I also would create my own brand. I’ve spent nearly 20 years helping manufacturers grow their brands; I would enjoy the challenge and the ability to leverage my expertise to create a consumer product. Both things I plan to do at some point!

What should the industry do to encourage more women and people of color into its ranks? 

A mentorship program that would focus on how to get started, resources and encouragement.  

How do you expect emerging tech like Web3 and AI to impact your job in the future? 

We are going to see tremendous innovation and efficiencies in the next few years. For internal company operations, we will enable efficiency for many teams by leveraging new AI tools—everything from customer support to help in creating marketing content. For our software tool suite for our customers, there will be many more applications that ultimately will enable better data integration, performance and time savings. Hopefully, my job will become more efficient, where I can spend more time on strategy, building relationships and things the AI can’t do—while allowing AI to automate tasks to free up time.