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Unqork at Work: Maren Mellen, Global Lead, Value Engineering

Work & Impact

The Highlight Reel: What’s the coolest project or problem you’ve tackled at Unqork so far that made you realize,“Yep, this is why I love working here.”

Standing up the Value Engineering practice from the ground up has been extremely rewarding. If I had to pick, a highlight has been partnering with our Solutions Engineering and India teams to build, deploy, and scale a fully integrated Business Value Assessment (BVA) application natively on Unqork. 

Using Unqork to solve an internal enterprise workflow challenge was not only a great way to demonstrate platform credibility, but it cut our field value life cycle time in half and gave our sales teams a standardized approach from discovery to business case presentation. 

I love establishing the frameworks, customer engagements, and cross-functional rhythm. Timing the development of these programs with the launch of UnqorkAI has allowed us to show enterprise leaders, in hard dollars and operational metrics, how Unqork’s architecture systematically dismantles legacy technical debt, compresses development cycles, and drives measurable ROI.

The Evolution: What strategies most helped you on your career trajectory, and what has been the most rewarding milestone of your career?

Two core philosophies defined my trajectory: anchoring on strategic business outcomes rather than feature-function justification, and treating talent development as a core pillar of success. 

Early in my career, I realized that true value leadership isn’t about running complex spreadsheets. It’s about acting as an executive translator between technical capability and C-suite financial priorities. For me, watching those who started on my team step into executive roles, build out their own practices, or head global functions at enterprise organizations is the ultimate measure of sustainable leadership impact.

Culture & Fun

The Vibe Check: How would you describe the vibe of the Unqork GTM team in just three words?

Entrepreneurial, Collaborative & Innovative

Unqork After Hours: What’s your favorite Unqork memory, team tradition, or casual moment that shows off the fun side of our culture?

One of my favorite traditions is how intentionally we celebrate each other’s personal milestones like tracking down someone’s favorite birthday dessert and bringing the entire floor together to celebrate.

The “Secret Sauce”: What’s one piece of advice for someone joining the team? 

Lead with relentless curiosity, and anchor every conversation in measurable impact. Don’t just learn what the platform can configure, obsess over why a CIO, CFO, or business unit leader should care. Build cross-functional bridges across Product, Architecture, and Sales early. Ask the second and third-order questions. And remember that our job is to guide customers from technical ambition to realized enterprise value.

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