Women on the Frontlines of Sustainability: Redefining consulting with Impact featuring Melissa Saoudy

Melissa Saoudy, Founder and Managing Director of The Why Impact Consulting

Melissa’s story isn’t about following the consulting playbook – it’s about experimentation and taking risks. After nearly a decade as a seasoned consultant at EY, she left the comfort of a big firm to ask an important question: What if consulting wasn’t just about efficiency, margins and PowerPoint, but about solving humanity's most significant problems to create meaningful impact in the realm of sustainability? 

Three years ago, Melissa turned this question into action by founding “The Why Impact Consulting”. Alongside earning her master’s in Social Innovation from the University of Cambridge, where her research on just transitions and planetary futures gave her a front-row seat to the global climate debate. That dual lens of practitioner and academic now drives her work.

At The Why Impact Consulting, the approach is unapologetically bespoke. Every project begins with one principle: for the sake of impact, never default to "copy-paste solutions”.  Each engagement is built from the ground up, blending foresight, design thinking, social innovation, and strategy. The team operates more like an ecosystem than a firm – a network of multidisciplinary advisors and experts who move fluidly between roles: sometimes as designers, sometimes executors, always as co-creators. The team is drawn together to co-create long-term solutions that governments, companies, and communities that actually come to life.

Guided by the UN SDGs and a commitment to nation-building, The Why has built a diverse portfolio: from nation-wide CSR / sustainability programs, to national space agendas, to international diplomacy in AI, to circular business models. The breadth of the Why’s work reflects both the firm’s versatility and its uncompromising focus on putting impact first.

Establishing a niche consulting firm has not been without challenges. Navigating a male-dominated space and operating within a flexible, evolving structure required resilience and adaptability. Melissa views every obstacle as an opportunity to innovate and adapt. As a leader, she embraces what she calls the “female traits of leadership,” where emotions sharpen logic to make decisions that are not only smart, but deeply human.

Her message to aspiring women entrepreneurs resonates strongly: “Forget chasing profit for its own sake. Focus on what brings you joy. Not every passion will be profitable right away, but impact compounds. That’s the kind of return worth betting your life on".