Melissa King is a strategic management, global healthcare, research & technology policy and communications executive. In 2020, she was Head of Field Operations for California’s Proposition 14 campaign, which secured an additional $5.5 Billion in funds for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), of which Melissa was a founding member.

Melissa continues to serve as Executive Director of Americans for Cures, where, for the three years leading up to November 2020 she led the effort to lay the groundwork for Prop 14 and build the patient advocacy coalition needed to get the state ballot initiative passed. She is a passionate advocate for patients of chronic illness and disease, as well as the medical research that can help reduce their suffering. An expert at engaging multiple stakeholders and communicating effectively with varied audiences, she has been a champion for the California Stem Cell Research program before it formally existed.

Long before her work on Prop 14, Melissa served as a senior member of the successful 2004 campaign for California’s Proposition 71, which created the California Stem Cell Funding program. During the final weeks of the Prop 71 campaign, at the request of the campaign chair, Melissa worked with legal counsel to form a non-profit – Americans for Cures. The purpose was to provide key support during the organizational period of the new stem cell funding agency and secure vital funds with tax-exempt donations to a 501(c) (3) organization. She hired initial staff for the non-profit and then transitioned several key employees to become the very first pioneers of the new state stem cell funding agency.