Melanie LeGrande, Major League Baseball

@angiemcphersonphotography

Through eight years with the Baltimore Ravens and her first year at Major League Baseball, Melanie LeGrande didn’t have the words “social responsibility” in her job title. The only time that term appeared on her business card was during the three years between those two career stops, when she worked at the nonprofit Silicon Valley Community Foundation as senior director of corporate responsibility.

With the Ravens, LeGrande was director of community relations. With MLB, she joined as director of community affairs.

It was during a restructuring of MLB at the start of 2017 that LeGrande assumed her current position, which previously did not exist at the league and wasn’t often found in sports. 

“Corporate responsibility is running your business in a way that considers the triple bottom line: your people, your planet and your profits,” said LeGrande. “So for me, I’ve been doing this work for 15 years.

“The pivot happened when I left sports for a few years. But the work was still the same. Instead of working with athletes and coaches and saying how do you want to impact this community and what can we work on together that will be a rewarding experience that has great reach — instead, I was doing that with companies. … The work was still the same. It’s still the theme of how can we be a responsible corporation.” — Bill King