Birmingham, Alabama
Melanie Bimbo
Operations, finance and governance executive
Operating models · Financial controls · Enterprise risk · Measurement
I build the systems an organization needs to deliver its strategy, then hold them to standard. Today that means directing a $50 million federal grant anchoring a $315 million neighborhood transformation in Birmingham, Alabama, the first of its kind in the state.
The work runs through 2032 and does three things at once: replaces 456 units of public housing across seven phases, delivers family support and education services to every household, and invests in the streets, storefronts and public space around them. More than 40 partner organizations deliver it under written agreement. I own the operating model, the budget, the control environment, the federal approval pathway and an independent evaluation, and I report to a board of commissioners and to the federal funder.
Underneath that sits fifteen years in compliance, controls and investigations: banking financial crimes, public sector audit, and Sarbanes-Oxley control testing. I moved from the technical side into an executive seat in a single step, and I still read the ledger before I read the summary.
Case notes
Building the seat
Operating model · Governance · 2024
The role had never existed at the agency. There was a $50 million federal award, an eight year clock, and no operating model behind it. I moved from a technical role into the executive seat in a single step and built the position.
I authored the governance and decision rights framework, the partner transition plan, and the front line service workflows. I set up a single tracking system for federal funding requests and deadlines, with named owners and early warning flags, so status is current rather than reconstructed at reporting time.
Two years on, the operating model I authored is shaping how the agency approaches its broader federal funding.
Testing what was inherited
Portfolio management · Contracts · Fiscal oversight
The grant application promised millions in partner contributions across dozens of organizations, over an eight year term. Federal reporting depended on those contributions being real. None of the agreements had been executed, and nobody had tested whether the partners could deliver what the application said they would.
I worked every commitment individually. I confirmed what each partner could actually provide, renegotiated the terms where the original numbers did not hold, wrote the compliance language into each agreement, and drove them to signature. The review also surfaced funding attached to work the portfolio did not need, which I redeployed to gaps no partner covered.
Roughly $15.8 million converted in committed partner services, every agreement executed, and $6.7 million redirected to unmet need. The contributions are now tracked live rather than assembled at deadline.
Filling a gap nobody owned
Partnership origination · Workforce · Negotiation
Reviewing a portfolio of more than fifty partners, I found an unfilled workforce gap. No existing partner covered it and no one was going to.
I cold solicited a community college, took the proposal to the dean, negotiated the delivery model, wrote the compliance terms, executed the agreement and recruited the first cohort. End to end. I have done the same thing in the other direction, brokering a police department captain to a university research team for a federal health application, and writing letters of support for other organizations' funding pursuits that have nothing to do with my grant.
A gap in the portfolio became a delivered program with compliance written in from the start.
Convening people who had not worked together
Cross-sector leadership · Influence without authority
Neighborhood safety was raised as a concern in the development process. I did not answer the concern. I formed a cross-sector coalition to address the underlying condition, and brought the city's public safety leadership to the table alongside a national civil rights organization and the private master developer.
The city surfaced a violence interruption pilot. I asked agency leadership to dedicate an unused residential unit as office space and secured it, at no cost. I have done the same conversion elsewhere, turning an underused gym into a construction training site.
The violence interruption program now runs in the target zip code, with the housing authority named as a partner. It is there in part because I asked.
Measuring what federal reporting misses
Evaluation · Learning · Data governance
Required reporting counts units, enrollments and services delivered. It does not tell you whether residents are healthier, whether the neighborhood feels safer, or whether longtime homeowners and local businesses benefited.
I asked a research university to serve as independent longitudinal evaluator and drove the agreement through their contracts office to signature. I insisted that residents be trained and paid to collect the data, and that the training be universal, so they earn a research certification that qualifies them for other paid research work afterward. I also set data ownership rules across health, education and workforce data: who enters, who checks, and when.
344 enrolled participants, 14 stipended community research assistants, a seven member community advisory board meeting monthly, and findings selected for presentation at three academic conferences, including the American Public Health Association annual meeting.
