Melissa Leong

Early life

As a young woman, Melissa Leong attended Ryerson University’s acclaimed Bachelor’s of Journalism program. After graduating from Ryerson, she entered the professional world and worked a variety of reporting beats, including crime, politics, terrorism, and the arts for such highly regarded Canadian newspapers as The National Post, The Toronto Star, and The Globe and Mail. As time went by, she developed a great interest in reporting financial and economic news and decided to whole-heartedly pursue it as her specialty.

Career

Over the course of her 17-year career in media, Melissa Leong has reported on stories of all shapes and shades. She has profiled survivors of the Rwandan genocide and investigated nanny abuse in Hong Kong. She has also interviewed royalty, heads of state, and celebrated actors such as Carrie Fisher and Hugh Jackman. In broadcasting, Leong has shared her unique combination of broadcast charisma and financial insight with outlets such as the Business News Network (BNN Bloomberg), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio division, Breakfast Television, Cable Pulse 24 (CP24), Your Morning, and Global News.

She is also a highly sought-after public speaker, emcee, interviewer, and moderator. Although usually asked to give full-length keynote addresses on subjects revolving around money, Melissa Leong also has a long track record of hosting galas, presenting at awards ceremonies, and delivering remarks at conferences and corporate events.

In 2018, Leong published a self-help book on personal finance titled Happy Go Money: Spend Smart, Save Right and Enjoy Life wherein she relates some sage advice about maintaining the delicate balance between finding happiness and saving money.

No stranger to the microphone, Melissa Leong is also the host of the podcast Money Moves: Conversations about Investing, partially produced by Royal Bank of Canada. In it, she covers such diverse topics as teaching kids how to budget, how to save for unexpected life events, and how the unrelenting march of technological progress has changed the way people invest.

In 2021, Leong was honoured with the ‘Creator of the Year’ Award from The Atelier Collective, an organization that supports and promotes ambitious women in business.

In a recent interview with her alma mater, Toronto Metropolitan University (which was called Ryerson University until 2022), Melissa Leong was asked an open-ended question about the biggest accomplishments of her career thus far. She replied, “My biggest accomplishment has been overcoming challenges. I’ve been thrust into many roles and beats as a journalist—not all of which I’ve enjoyed. But I tried to approach each job with a willingness to learn. If you never accept new challenges, how do you know that you won’t succeed?” She related an anecdote meant to reassure aspiring journalists. “On my first day as a business reporter at The Financial Post, I thought an executive was referring to hard-shelled chocolates in a conference call and he ridiculed me: ‘M&A…mergers and acquisitions.’ Every journey begins with a day one.”

When not working, Melissa Leong writes teen fiction under the pseudonym Wynne Channing. Her 2012 novel What Kills Me was written under this name and became a top-rated best-seller on Amazon, ultimately winning several reader’s choice awards. Leong (as Wynne Channing) wrote a sequel entitled I Am Forever, released in 2014. Together as a series, the books have sold more than 70,000 copies.

A staunch advocate for young people, Melissa Leong also mentors youth of all descriptions, as well as volunteering her time with several organizations whose mandates are to promote the advancement and empowerment of young women.

Net Worth

Unknown.