Melanie Lucht

Associate Vice President and Chief Risk Officer

Melanie Lucht is the Associate Vice President and Chief Risk Officer for Carnegie Mellon University.  In this role, Melanie oversees the following Organizations: Environmental Health and Safety, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, Emergency Preparedness, and Risk Operations.

Under Melanie’s leadership, her teams support the mission, values, and strategic objectives of the university by sustaining and enhancing a safe and healthy environment and supporting organizational resiliency with a risk-conscious culture. She oversees the development and deployment of risk management tools and practices across the university and leads a cross-functional group to provide risk intelligence to university leadership and inform strategic decision making.

Melanie’s tenure with Carnegie Mellon began in 2013 as the Senior Manager for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Services.  In 2017, Melanie was appointed the Assistant Vice President of the newly formed Enterprise Risk Management department while also serving as interim director for each of the Organizations reporting to her.  In August of 2018, Melanie was promoted to Associate Vice President and Chief Risk Officer. Prior to her years at Carnegie Mellon, Melanie was the Vice President for Enterprise Business Resiliency at PNC Financial Services and has an extensive background in the insurance industry.

Melanie is a Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP), a member of the Business Continuity Institute (MBCI), a Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC), a Certified Continuity Manager (CCM), and holds the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designation. In 2017, she was recognized internationally by the Business Continuity Institute as Continuity and Resiliency Professional of the Year for the private sector.  In 2018, she successfully completed the first offering of the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) Executive Education Program at the Heinz College. The only woman in the class of 16 executives, she was a member of the project team that achieved top honors in the program.  She now serves as a project team coach and guest lecturer. Melanie also serves on the Fusion Risk Management Executive Peer Exchange, the Disaster Recovery Journal (DRJ) Editorial Advisory Board and is a board member of the New Hazlett Theater.

Melanie received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and master’s degree in administration of justice from Mercyhurst College.

Email Melanie: mlucht@andrew.cmu.edu