Melanie Marie Malloy Boyer is a business whisperer, curator of connections and proud Colombian.
How does this skillset wrap all into one person? For the executive director of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a multi-hyphenate — someone who has multiple skillsets and professions — it comes naturally.
Boyer’s goal is to give Hispanic business owners the resources to be empowered, gain more clients, conduct better business, access capital and use that capital nationally and internationally to grow and scale.
She began her career in criminal justice and was once scouted by the FBI and DEA. She found her passion for helping friends market their businesses online and saw the power of social media translating to dollars. Despite having no entrepreneurial background, she built a marketing firm. Around the same time, Boyer started volunteering with the chamber. She has been connected to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce since before she was born, as her mother was active in both the Latin American Cultural Union and the chamber from its early days in Pittsburgh.
“I started volunteering for the chamber, organizing events, and it snowballed,” Boyer said.
The events grew, and she attended the national conference for the chamber, learning about the Hispanic community’s economic impact.
“I knew I was always entrepreneurial, but I didn’t realize it was in my DNA as much as it actually is,” she said.
According to Boyer, “Hispanics start businesses at a rate of 6 to 1 compared to other groups and makeup 86% of the new workforce.”
This is also supported by data from the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
“With Pittsburgh on the edge of this technology revolution but still hemorrhaging talent and population, it’s clear that Hispanics are a solution to many of these problems. Yet, historically, we don’t have the infrastructure to support this community. We have great programs, but if they are not tailored to a community’s specific needs, they will be missed,” Boyer said.
This is changing. Initially, Latinos in Pittsburgh felt a lack of cultural representation. Now, they are finding a home, partly because of Boyer.
Dr. Carlos Sánchez, who is a clinical researcher at the Mayo Clinic, moved from the Dominican Republic to Pittsburgh about a year and a half ago. When he heard Spanish for the first time in three months in an Apple Store, he connected with a man from Puerto Rico who introduced him to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Beechview. That’s where Sánchez met Boyer.
“Melanie is super awesome,” he said. Through a series of events and with Boyer’s help, Sánchez met Dr. Juan Lora, a gastroenterologist from the Dominican Republic, which led to a six-week observership.
From 2010 to 2018, the Hispanic population in Pittsburgh grew by 170%, Boyer said. When her marketing business was at its peak, the pandemic hit, changing everything. Personal events also took a toll.
“My business went under in a second, I had two young children, I had to file for a PFA and divorce the first week of lockdown,” Boyer said. Her father died six months later.
Still, Boyer found a way to rebuild her life with community support.
“I got funding for my salary and the program from the Heinz Endowment Foundation, and it snowballed,” she said.
The PMAHCC now runs 12 programs helping students, entrepreneurs, professionals, nonprofits, corporations and the community. It has six staff members: three paid and three interns.
Included in its resources is AI programming. The PMAHCC received a $250,000 grant from the state of Pennsylvania through the CDFI Network for technical assistance for minority small businesses.
“We are not just looking at helping people now; we want to make everything sustainable using future-looking technology,” Boyer said.
They will help business owners like Karin Christoff from Peru, who owns Fierce Knockouts Fitness Apparel in Cranberry.
“With the chamber’s resources, it’s easier to connect with the Latin community and network with others,” Christoff said. “Melanie has been awesome. She sat down with me, went through what I’m doing, and helped me link with people. She got me in a program with the chamber, which I graduated from last year.”
The PMAHCC will provide an AI to work one-on-one with people to improve their businesses, along with consultants.
Boyer is a huge champion of diversity. “We need people of all backgrounds to have the best ideas, including AI,” she said.
“Hispanics are most likely to start a business but least likely to reach the million-dollar mark and have employees,” Boyer said. It’s about growing, scaling, creating more capital and reinvesting that capital into the Hispanic community and the broader community.
The PMAHCC has a Business Success Academy with a financial component. It also has a financial education program for small businesses with Citizens Bank. The AI platform will be different in that it will trained by folks in the Hispanic and financial community, with the ability to provide detailed information about loans and resources available in Pittsburgh.
Boyer’s accomplishments are impressive and echo her goals. She was recently named to the Minority, Women, Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (MWDBE) Governmental Committee for Allegheny County. The MWDBE has launched a certification program to empower Hispanic-owned businesses.
Boyer is also on the founding board of the Pennsylvania Chapter of The Association of Women in International Trade (WIIT).
From an early age, Boyer has always had confidence. “I tend not to care what people think too much,” she said. “I don’t believe in failure, I see it as an opportunity to pivot, learn and grow.”
Boyer was born in Pittsburgh and her mother was born in Colombia. So, Boyer spent summers in Colombia and the school year in Pittsburgh. Family time is important to the mother of two.
“We are obsessed with arepas. I have 20 different ways to make them, including with mozzarella and strawberry jelly, but I can’t make them as perfectly as my mom,” she said.
Boyer attended Catholic school for 13 years, both in Colombia and Pittsburgh. Her grandparents had a jewelry store in Colombia, and she often wore gold jewelry. “People would ask if I was rich because I always wore gold. That focus on economic status was notable to me even as a child,” she said.
Now living in Pine-Richland School District, she teaches her kids to treat everyone as equals.
“I firmly believe that empowering those historically overlooked elevates everyone,” she said.
Shaylah Brown is a TribLive reporter covering art, culture and communities of color. A New Jersey native, she joined the Trib in 2023. When she”s not working, Shaylah dives into the worlds of art, wellness and the latest romance novels. She can be reached at sbrown@triblive.com.
