About Your Work Friends
The best workplaces aren’t built by accident.
They’re built on purpose. After more than two decades leading talent, leadership, and organizational strategy inside complex organizations, we kept seeing the same pattern: workplaces people trust, stay in, and do great work inside are intentionally designed.
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Mel Plett + Francesca Ranieri, Co-Founders
How this started
We built something we always wished we had.
Before Your Work Friends was a podcast, a business, or a strategy firm, it was a real friendship built through layoffs, reorgs, promotions, brilliant teams, messy systems, and every “is this normal?” moment in between.
After 20+ years each leading Talent, Leadership, and Business strategy, we kept seeing the same thing: work usually breaks where strategy meets reality. So we built Your Work Friends to help leaders make sense of what is happening and build what comes next with more clarity, durability, and humanity.
Our ethos
Clear. Durable. Human.
Different organizations, different roles, different pressures, but the same themes keep showing up. Strategies stall when people cannot keep up. Culture cracks when work feels disconnected. Leaders do not need more performance theater. They need systems people can actually use.
So everyone knows where they are going, why it matters, and how decisions get made.
Because real advantage comes from systems that hold under pressure, not plans that fade after the meeting.
Because people are not a cost line. They are the differentiator. When people thrive, businesses do too.
Meet the founders
Two operators. One shared standard.
The people you want in the room when the work gets messy.
We bring 40+ years of combined experience across talent, leadership, learning, employee experience, and business strategy inside complex, high-performing organizations.
Mel Plett
Co-Founder & Strategic Partner
Strategic Where it Counts, Human Where it Matters.
Mel has spent two decades inside Big Law, KPMG, Deloitte, and professional services environments leading talent strategy across employee experience, leadership development, talent acquisition, and talent technology.
Known for cutting through noise, spotting the root issue, and helping people and business grow together.
Connect on LinkedIn →Francesca Ranieri
Co-Founder & Strategic Partner
People Strategist. Corporate Truth Teller.
Francesca has spent 20 years leading learning and talent at companies like Nike, Baker Tilly, and Deloitte, building internal teams that operate like revenue-generating businesses.
Known for making complex things simple, giving a damn about the work and people, and saying what needs to be said.
Connect on LinkedIn →
Why clients keep coming back
Sharp thinking. Real partnership.
Our best work usually starts with one conversation and grows from there.
We build things people can actually use, then help leaders keep the work moving.
Honest conversations work better when there is enough trust in the room to tell the truth.
The goal is not dependence. It is clarity, capability, and better decisions after we leave.
Let’s build work that works better.
If your strategy is right but execution still feels harder than it should, there is probably a system underneath it that needs attention.