Melody Lee has never been one to follow a traditional road map. Beginning her career in crisis communications at the “small-ish” Public Strategies in Austin, Texas, Lee eventually worked her way up to become the Chief Marketing Officer of Mercedes-Benz and charting a new path for one of the world’s most iconic luxury car brands.
Standing at five feet tall, Lee isn’t easily intimidated by the historically male-run auto industry. Instead, she uses her background as an Asian-American executive at a Fortune 500 company to create new experiences for and relationships with a younger and more diverse consumer. As Lee tells Glamour, “One of the best examples we have in our partnership space is with East Side Golf.” The lifestyle golf brand was formed with the mission to make the sport more accessible to a wider and more diverse audience. “It was more than putting the logo on some items of clothing by East Side,” Lee says. “It was to support [HBCU] Morehouse’s golf program. It was our donation of a [Mercedes-Benz] van to their golf team that enabled them to get around better. Putting more equity back into the world is much more important.”
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Auberge Resort’s Blue Sky Lodge in Park City, Utah with Mercedes-Benz. While the trip started off with an intimate concert from country star LeAnn Rimes and a massage at the spa, my favorite part was getting to test drive Mercedes-Benz’s first all-electric G-Wagon, the Electric G 580. As a Gen-Z from a low-income family, it was my first time driving a Mercedes-Benz and an experience I’ll never forget. It also exemplifies Lee’s vision for the company: to reach young and diverse audiences through sustainability and technological innovations.
For the latest installment of Glamour’s Doing the Work, Lee shares her morning routine as a mom, the best piece of money advice she’s ever received, her vision for Mercedes-Benz reaching Gen-Z and multicultural communities as the next consumers, and more.
Glamour: To start off, what is your typical morning routine?
Melody Lee: I get up around 6:00 AM. I’m not a morning person, but my children have forced me into it. I need to get ready for work, but I also need to feed the kids, get them dressed, and out the door. One of them I take to school as well. Thankfully, it is a very nice ride in my car, so I drive him to school and then drive to the office. That’s typically my routine—a lot of running around. There’s also a dog in the mix, too.
