About Speaker

Melissa Lesperance is the director of the District Command Center security operations at Ilitch Holdings, Inc./Olympia Development of Michigan. She has held this position since May 2017. Lesperance began her career in law enforcement in 1996 at the Wayne State University Police Department, where she served as a student assistant cadet and was hired full time as a public safety dispatcher upon graduating from Wayne State in 1999. Lesperance has extensive experience in corporate security technology and operations. In 2014, she accepted the position of director of security systems at the University of Chicago’s Department of Safety and Security, where she was responsible for implementing security technology and ensuring the safety of students, staff and faculty at the main campus and eight extension campuses across the world. In her current role, Lesperance is responsible for and oversees all District Command Center Operations and supervises operations at partner Ilitch Company command centers as well. She oversees the security portion of fire life safety for all Ilitch owned venues, all security-related executive communications, criminal investigations, alarm monitoring for all venues and response for all equipped Little Caesars stores and Blue Line Distribution centers in the continental United States. Lesperance also works in partnership with local law enforcement on criminal investigations, intelligence gathering and dissemination and other professional sports league requirements. Lesperance graduated from Wayne State University with a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice and a two-year post-bachelor’s certificate in forensic investigation. She also obtained a project management certificate from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree in leadership development from St. Mary of the Woods. Lesperance is currently pursuing a global studies program in international security at Harvard University.