The Board of Directors of the Media Research Center, America’s media watchdog, recently announced that Savannah civic leader Melissa Emery has been elected the new chairman of its Board of Trustees.

“We are elated that Melissa has decided to join our Board of Trustees as chairman,” said MRC founder and president L. Brent Bozell, III. “Her success in business will be invaluable to the continued success of our organization.”

Emery, who is currently serving as interim director of the Savannah Philharmonic and who has served as chairman of its Board of Directors for the past five years, helped to found the Savannah Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus as well as the Savannah Friends of Music, where she served as chairman for four years. She has been a board member of Greenbriar Children’s Center and is a past president of the Kiwanis Club of Skidaway Island.  

Prior to her retirement, Emery and her husband, Jim, formed Viewfinder Research, conducting focus groups and then moving into marketing consulting for a wide variety of clients, including Coca-Cola, General Foods, L’Oreal, Pepperidge Farm, Taylor Made Golf and Johnson & Johnson, among others.

A native of Chicago, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business economics from Purdue University and an M.B.A. in marketing and finance from Northwestern University. As an alumna of the Krannert School of Business at Purdue, she served on the Dean’s Advisory Board there for six years, and was named Alumna of the Year in 2000.