Think Tank was already globally ranked. My team and I rebuilt the learning operating system underneath it to scale 3× without losing the standard.
I joined at a turning point.
The reputation was strong. The system underneath wasn't ready to scale: metrics too soft to drive decisions, the same quality issues resurfacing, content lagging demand.
My team and I rebuilt the foundation, scaled the engine, and held the standard across learners in 50+ countries.
Strengthen the operating system before scaling.
Modernize the content pipeline.
Hold quality through growth, across an international cohort and under provincial regulatory oversight.
Two patterns kept surfacing in the quality data: content drift and support saturation, neither measured well enough to fix at scale. Measurement came first.
You can't scale what you can't see. I rebuild measurement before anything else.
The bottleneck was production, not talent. We rebuilt the pipeline around AI scaffolding and cut planning, outlining, assessment, and synthesis time by 75%+.
AI drafted skeletons, rubrics, and summaries. SMEs still owned development, scripting, recording, and the final say. Leverage, not authorship.
AI is leverage, not authorship. I rebuild engines so experts spend time where it matters.
Both root patterns cleared. Under the new framework, on-time completion climbed and held at 95%+, sustained across a fully international cohort as the school scaled.
I left when the work was done. The systems are still running.
Each square is a course, colored by the stream it belongs to: four under CG Asset Creation, plus the Houdini generalist program. One shared standard underneath them all.
The real test of an operating system isn't how it runs while you're there. It's that it keeps running after you leave.
"Mel has a rare ability to design and scale operating models that work in practice, balancing strategy, execution, and people with clarity and calm."
Two independent industry sources documented work I led at Think Tank. The Rookies methodology is based entirely on portfolio reviews by working industry professionals, so the rankings measure what the learning systems produced.
Including #1 globally for Game Design & Development in 2023. The Rookies ranks schools on portfolio reviews by working industry professionals, so it measures what the systems produced.
Two new 16-month intensive programs in procedural VFX, designed with industry collaboration, added during my academic leadership.
That's the work I do. If it's the work you need, get in touch.
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