Brand Builder
CMU alumna Meela Imperato helps startups grow their brands from the ground up
By Kelly Rembold
For many college students, an internship is a life-changing experience that can shape the trajectory of their career. That was true for Carnegie Mellon University alumna Meela Imperato, with one important difference: The internship wasn’t actually hers.
Meela was on track to work in the publishing industry. She loved books and poetry, and was pursuing dual bachelor’s degrees in creative and professional writing from Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Then her roommate landed an internship at Microsoft. It piqued Meela’s interest, and she decided to minor in global systems management.
“I was exposed to a side of the publishing industry that I don't think I would've gotten anywhere else,” Meela says. “I took different courses that had me exploring more technical areas. It was incredibly career changing, even life changing.”
The technical coursework also gave Meela exposure to the startup space.
“I was involved in building apps and working on projects in the startup arena,” Meela says. “I usually played the role of the content manager or operations manager alongside my engineering counterparts. I was so immersed in that world and appreciated those experiences so much.”
She didn’t know it then, but those experiences would ultimately change her career.
"Immersing myself in those extracurriculars and those commitments was the most rewarding experience. They taught me the most and prepared me for the real world equally as much as the coursework did. It was incredibly impactful for me."
The Perfect Pace
Meela received her bachelor’s degrees in 2013 and went on to earn dual master’s degrees in professional writing and investigative journalism in 2015. From there, she took a full-time job in desktop publishing.
“I thought that it was everything I wanted to do,” she says. “But I found myself missing and longing for the faster-pace work environment that I got so used to at Carnegie Mellon. I was in publishing for less than a year before it became immediately apparent to me that I wanted to get into the startup space.”
Meela left her job at the publishing company to join Noom, an early-stage health tech startup. The company downsized less than two years later, making her the only marketing team member.
“It was a throw-you-to-the-wolves situation,” she says. “That was a crazy experience — being at such a fast-paced startup and being given so much responsibility right off the bat.”
Meela was well-prepared for the demands of the job thanks to her involvement with extracurriculars at CMU. She’d been a Greek life officer, orientation counselor, student body vice president and publisher at The Tartan.
“Immersing myself in those extracurriculars and those commitments was the most rewarding experience,” Meela says. “They taught me the most and prepared me for the real world equally as much as the coursework did. It was incredibly impactful for me.”
Meela helped Noom build its brand from the ground up, and then moved on to do the same at other early-stage startups, including Aaptiv, Jumprope, Seated and EasyKnock.
Looking back, she realizes now why the publishing industry wasn’t a good fit.
“It was just a slower pace and a space where your value to a company was measured in the time that you had been there rather than the output of your work,” Meela says. “As Carnegie Mellon students, we'd been taught to be efficient and output oriented. That became so ingrained in me that the idea of my value or contributions being measured in any way that wasn't my work output didn't jive with me.”
"I've found consulting work to be particularly rewarding because of the one-to-one interaction. Working with a founder to take something that is often just an inkling of an idea, shaping it into something that is big picture and thinking through how that will trickle down into various channels is super exciting and fulfilling."
Meaningful Marketing
Today, Meela works with startups in a different capacity.
She owns Meela Imperato Marketing, a consulting company where she has helped companies and startups like Lyft, Google, Vestwell, SoWell Health and Briefly with brand building, strategic communications and full-funnel marketing strategies.
“I've found consulting work to be particularly rewarding because of the one-to-one interaction,” Meela says. “Working with a founder to take something that is often just an inkling of an idea, shaping it into something that is big picture and thinking through how that will trickle down into various channels is super exciting and fulfilling.”
She’s also the head of marketing at Cofertility, a health tech startup that supports individuals and families across different phases of the fertility journey. The company’s “Freeze by Co” platform enables women to freeze their eggs for free when they donate half of the eggs to families that otherwise can’t conceive, while its “Family by Co” platform focuses on facilitating ethical egg donor matching without cash compensation.
Like the rest of the Cofertility team, Meela has a deeply personal connection to her work.
“Cofertility is a dream job for me because, at the same time that I was navigating my career for the last six years, I was also going through a crazy fertility journey of my own that involved multiple miscarriages and IVF until I eventually had my son,” she says. “Being at a company where we're doing something that's actively changing people's lives, making fertility care more accessible while creating ethical family-building options to help people expand their families, is such a meaningful and amazing place to be.”
For Meela, it’s also a place where she can do what she loves most — build a brand.
“This is really the sweet spot,” she says. “This is the fun stuff. This is where we're building things from the ground up and celebrating milestones and victories every day, and it's thrilling.”
