Christopher Melillo

Christopher Melillo is the Founder and Managing Partner of Kaye/Bassman’s Energy Practice. He manages teams in several areas of the energy industry as well as managing his own teams in Power Generation, Transmission & Distribution for Engineering and Operational Leadership roles as well as Oil & Gas Engineering and Geoscience recruitment along with coverage in Energy Commodity Trading. As Practice Leader, Christopher is responsible for the strategic design and development of the practice as a whole. In addition to setting the pace at Kaye/Bassman with his industry leadership, and also was a committee member of the Kaye/Bassman Foundation. His passion for helping others has played a key role in the Foundation’s milestone accomplishment of donating over $1,5m, since inception. He also created a memorial football scholarship at Winona State University in honor of his father, Adrian.

Christopher started in the executive search industry in Chicago in 1990 with PEI and then recruited to Rapport Associates Ltd. He was quickly promoted to Vice President of Business Development and Partner where he worked closely with the Interim Management Practice serving Third World development bank consultancies including two large projects for the World Bank – a project with National Housing Corporation in Papua New Guinea and a highway civil engineering project in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Chris was also responsible for production and administrative oversight of all three of Rapport’s divisions including the Rapport Temporary Service. In 1994, Christopher started Global Search, Inc. which was later acquired and then started MAG Partners, Inc. which he then folded into Kaye/Bassman in 2004.

Christopher studied Criminal Justice at Winona State University which he attended on an athletic/football scholarship. He lettered four years and was the Defensive Captain his Junior and Senior year. Since then, Christopher has been a World Champion power-lifter, marathoner and played Rugby for the Chicago Lions and Dallas Reds. Christopher lives with his wife, Jodi and two dogs, Al Pacino & Jack Ruby, in Nevada, TX.