Melody Biringer is a self-proclaimed “connection engineer,” a serial entrepreneur who has built a career around building communities for women to thrive. She is the founder of the acclaimed Crave Company, where she's spent more than 20 years encouraging women to have fun while connecting with others, and Women in Tech Regatta, an annual series of conferences in Seattle, Vancouver, and Amsterdam, first held in 2017.

Mel coined the hashtag #RelationshipsAreTheTrueCurrency, and lives it fully. In addition to empowering women and building relationships, she juggles her responsibility as an author, event planner, social maven, and strawberry shortcake heiress—and still finds time to log more than 10,000 steps a day, usually while conducting business or catching up with friends. Mel's latest lovechild is modern walking club Loop, named after the Dutch word for "walk" (a nod to her love of Dutch culture) and an inside joke with her husband—they've been "taking a loop" around their Queen Anne neighborhood for their daily walk since 1994.