Humu welcomes four new executives to our expanded leadership team. 

  • Sarah Adessa, VP of Operations
  • Tom Chen, Head of Product
  • Melanie Munsey, VP of Customer Success
  • Alan Talanoa, Chief Technology Officer

Our commitment to creating a product our customers love 

At Humu, our people are at the heart of our mission: to make work better. We are passionate about helping organizations do important work and reach their goals, even in the midst of uncertainty and challenging constraints. 

Our leadership team is powering our commitment to create world-class technology and product experiences our customers love. Each new leader brings a deep bench of expertise and storied experience in the tech sector that will accelerate a new era of growth and strengthen our ability to build the future of Humu. 

Sarah Adessa, VP of Operations

"I am energized by the work we’re doing across Humu to provide valuable insights to our customers, advance our product, and win together as a team."

Sarah Adessa is Humu’s VP of Operations. In this capacity, she’s responsible for overseeing and implementing the daily operations of the company in pursuit of Humu’s corporate strategy.

Sarah has 15 years of experience leading high performing teams and is passionate about improving company culture and performance. Sarah joins Humu from Microsoft where she served as a Chief of Staff within Microsoft’s Collaborative Apps and Platforms organization spanning Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and Viva. Prior to Microsoft, Sarah spent more than 8 years at Apptio where she first worked as VP of Corporate Communications and later as Chief of Staff to the Chief Product & Technology Officer. 

Sarah lives in Seattle with her husband, daughter, and French Bulldog Limoux. When she’s not trying out the latest note-taking technology, she can be found reading, listening to political podcasts, or vintage handbag shopping.

Tom Chen, Head of Product

“I am thrilled to be Humu’s Head of Product, and have the chance to build category-defining products, make work a better place, and deliver experiences that our customers will love.”

Tom is the Head of Product at Humu where he is building products that make work better. Tom has over 10 years of experience building B2B software. He joins us from Instacart, where he focused on creating retailer-facing services that help grocery retailers onboard, manage, and grow their businesses. Prior to Instacart, Tom spent 3 years growing Lyft's B2B products and was responsible for building net new product lines while organizing the overall product portfolio. Tom has also led product teams at AWS, where he led cloud cost management products, and spent a number of years early in his career writing open-source software.

Tom holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and MBA from MIT. When he isn't working, he can be found hanging out with family and friends or tending to his hobbies, which include listening to podcasts, watching live sports and the latest TV shows, playing random video games, and more.

Melanie Munsey, VP of Customer Success

“I am passionate about making work better for people, and Humu's combination of insights, behavioral change, and people science expertise in this area were incredibly compelling."

Melanie is VP of Customer Success at Humu. Melanie's team is focused on making Humu better for customers, so they can make work better for their teams. With over 15 years of experience focused on customers, she's passionate about driving impact and building strong, enduring customer relationships. Melanie comes to us most recently from Numerator, where she led both a customer success function and a professional services team focused on understanding consumer behavior. 

Her hometown is Chicago, where she graduated with a B.S. in Marketing from DePaul University. Outside of Humu, Melanie is a voracious reader, casual cyclist, aspiring cat lady, and tourist in her new home, New Orleans.

Alan Talanoa, Chief Technology Officer

“I am most excited about the opportunity we have at Humu to achieve our mission – make work better – by modernizing and scaling first-in-class technology for our customers.” 

Alan serves as Humu’s Chief Technology Officer responsible for defining the company’s technical strategy, building a world-class product, and leading a team of high-performing engineers.

Prior to Humu, Alan was the VP of Engineering at Honor. At Honor, he was responsible for Engineering and Data and led through a period of high growth, scaling both the org in addition to initiating the modernization of the technology stack in support of Honor’s lead position in the aging space. He also spent just under 4 years at Lyft, where he led engineering for Lyft Business (Lyft’s B2B arm). Prior to Lyft, Alan also led product teams in the AWS Insights organization - most notably Cost Explorer. This included the underlying analytics service that provides all AWS customers low latency access to all of their cost and usage data.

After spending most of his career in Seattle, Alan and his family moved to the Bay Area. On most weekends you’ll find Alan, his wife, and children hiking one of the many beautiful trails throughout Northern California.

The journey ahead 

We are building from the strong foundation of the last six years of leadership, product innovation, and customer success. The expertise of our expanded leadership team reflects our dedication to innovation and customer-centricity, so we can make work even better. We’re excited for the journey ahead.