melyn - First Nations Community Champion

Indigenous Partnerships & Advisory · Ambassador role · Canada-wide Location: Anywhere in Canada. The relationships matter, the postal code doesn't.

Engagement: Independent contractor. Non-exclusive. No fixed hours.

Works with: TJ Galiardi, co-founder & CEO

Commitment: None. You choose if, when, and who. ABOUT melyn melyn is a Canadian technology and advisory firm serving First Nations leadership across Canada. We operate three divisions.

melyn Impact is our client partnership and delivery arm.

Nation

Navigators own each community relationship, project teams run delivery from award through reporting, and adoption specialists make sure technology actually gets used in community.

melyn Empower is grant consulting on a success-fee model, unlocking capital that Nations are eligible for but not capturing.

melynBrain is a digital governance and operations platform covering grants, housing, finance, project management, and community engagement.

We work with Nations as strategic partners, built on data sovereignty principles and no-upfront-cost models. We're in high-growth mode across Canada.

That growth only counts if it happens the right way. That's where you come in. THE ROLE The best work we do starts with an introduction from someone the community already trusts.

A cold email from a vendor to a Band Manager is worth approximately nothing, and it should be. Nations have been sold to for a very long time, usually by people who left before the invoice cleared. The conversations that go somewhere start when someone a community trusts says these people are worth an hour of your time, and means it.

That's the role. You are the person who says it.

When you see a Nation, economic development corporation, or tribal council where melyn could genuinely help, you make the introduction. You stay in the room for the early conversations, giving context, telling us what we're walking into, helping both sides work out whether there's a real fit. If it becomes work, you're recognized for the part you played.

That's the whole role. There is no second page. WHAT THIS ROLE IS NOT

Being blunt, because this is easy to misread and we'd rather lose you now than waste your time.

Not a sales job. No quotas. No targets. No minimum number of introductions. Not "no targets for now." None, ever, in writing, in the agreement.

Not employment. Independent contractor. You keep doing whatever you already do. This sits alongside your life, not on top of it.

Not exclusive. Work with whoever else you want. We'd be suspicious of anyone who only had us.

Not a name-lending exercise. A forwarded email doesn't count. We're asking for judgment, not a mailing list.

Not pressure, in either direction. You are never expected to support an engagement that doesn't feel right for a community.

Every

Nation decides what's in its own best interest, full stop. If a community asks us to step back, we step back, and you never have to be the one who argues otherwise. WHAT YOU'D ACTUALLY DO

Make introductions where you see real alignment. Your timeline, your discretion, your read.

Sit in the first conversation. Not as a formality.



You know what questions a Band Manager should be asking that we won't think to prompt.

Give us honest context. How the Nation governs itself. Who actually decides. What the last vendor got wrong. What's politically live right now and what isn't.

Tell us when we're not the right fit. This is a listed duty, not a courtesy. We hold a high bar for which engagements we take on, and your read is part of how we hold it.

Shape where the product goes next. You'll see melynBrain up close. What you'd want it to do for the communities you know goes straight to the people building it. WHAT VALUABLE LOOKS LIKE

This isn't a scoreboard. There are no numbers you have to hit, and nobody is going to send you a pipeline report. But here's what the version of this that works actually looks like.

One introduction a year to a Nation where we do genuinely excellent work beats twelve introductions that go nowhere. We are not optimizing for volume and neither should you.

You're in the first call, and you talk. The Nation hears your read, not just ours.

Six months in, the community still takes your call, because you didn't spend your credibility on something that disappointed them.

When we start drifting toward a fit that isn't real, you say so before we do.

The measure is simple. Did the community end up better off? If the answer is no, the introduction was a mistake regardless of what came of it. THE INCENTIVE There's no salary and no retainer, and nothing is asked of you on a schedule.

What we do have is a way of recognizing it when an introduction you made leads somewhere real. It runs for a defined period once that work begins, not indefinitely, and it holds whether or not you're still involved by then. You can take it yourself, or direct it to a Nation-controlled entity or initiative instead.

It exists to acknowledge your relationships and your time. It is not a commission and this is not a sales role. We'll walk you through it plainly in the first conversation. WHO YOU ARE

We are hiring for judgment and standing, in that order. There is no experience requirement, because the thing that matters here can't be acquired in a job.

Required

People trust you, and you've protected that. Current or former Chiefs and Councillors, band managers, senior administrators, econ dev officers, development corporation leadership, or advisors trusted across multiple Nations for years. However you got there, you got there by not spending it carelessly.

You can tell a real solution from a good pitch. You've watched vendors come through with impressive decks and nothing behind them. You know the difference and you're not embarrassed to say so out loud.

You'd say no to us. If you can't imagine turning down an introduction that would benefit you, this isn't the role.



That instinct is the entire job.

You know how Nations actually decide. Council dynamics, capacity constraints, funding cycles, what happens between a good meeting and a signed BCR.

Discreet. You'll see client situations and internal information. It stays with you.

Nice to have

Direct experience with ISC programs, funding mechanisms, or grant cycles

Time on the buying side of a technology or consulting purchase for a Nation, especially one that went badly

Relationships across more than one region or treaty area A seat on a board, a committee, or a development corporation

Not your style if

You want a referral fee for sending a name. That's not this, and the agreement is written specifically to exclude it.

You'd rather not be in the room for the hard part of the conversation.

You're comfortable recommending something you haven't formed your own opinion about.

You want us to give you a target so you know what's expected. We're not going to, and if that's uncomfortable this won't fit. WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS We could hire salespeople. It's cheaper per introduction and far easier to manage.

We're not going to, because the incentive is wrong. A salesperson's job is to close the Nation in front of them. Your job is to be right about which Nations should be in front of us at all, and to be the one who says not this one, which is worth more to us than the deal.

That only works if the people doing it have something to lose. You do. Your name, in communities you'll still be in long after any contract ends. We're deliberately building this around people who cannot afford to introduce us badly. That's the safeguard, and it's a better one than any policy we could write.

Every relationship built this way starts with trust already in the room. That's not a growth hack. It's the only version of this business worth running. THE INTERVIEW GOES BOTH WAYS Given what we're actually asking for, this process runs in both directions. We mean that literally, not as a nice line in a job posting.

You're being asked to attach your name to our work in communities where your reputation is the thing you can't rebuild. So you get to interview us properly. Ask hard questions. Ask about our toughest engagement and how we handled it. Ask what happens when a Nation wants out. Push on the data sovereignty commitments as hard as you like. They'll hold.

We want you to see the product before you decide anything. Get into melynBrain. Poke at it. Ask why we built it that way. Talk to a Nation already using it, without us in the room. We'll make the introduction and stay out of it.

And then only say yes if you actually believe in it.

We don't want a Champion who's neutral on the product and interested in what they'd get out of it. That person will make one introduction, damage a relationship they spent twenty years building, and rightly resent us for it. If you get to the end of this and you're lukewarm, tell us. That's a good outcome, and we'll be genuinely glad you did.

We're only interested in people who'd recommend us with no agreement in place at all. The agreement just makes sure you're looked after when you do.

📌 melyn - First Nations Community Champion - Brand Ambassador (Indigenous Partnerships) (Canada)
🏢 melyn
📍 Canada