When Sinéad Voorhees first met Melissa Koontz over lunch eight years ago, she walked away thinking that Koontz is the kind of person to have "on my Armageddon team.”

Koontz struck Vorhees as a powerhouse: driven, dynamic, and brimming with the kind of energy that makes people stop and take notice. Since their first encounter, Koontz, senior vice president, employee benefits at the Spokane office of Alliant Insurance International Inc., has become a familiar presence in Spokane — emceeing events, co-hosting DisruptHR Spokane, and serving on multiple boards, all while raising three small children.

“She just commands a room,” says Voorhees, assistant dean of graduate studies at Whitworth University. “When she is up on stage for DisruptHR, I just love to see her in her element. It is so much fun to watch it. I know she prepares, but it looks so effortless and so natural.”

Given these qualities, it’s no surprise that Voorhees has nominated Koontz for the Rising Stars award several times. This year, Koontz was certain it was finally her turn. She had built a reputation not just of professional achievement, but also of being approachable, authentic, and committed to her community.

Koontz, 35, has spent more than a decade in the employee benefits and human resources industry. She climbed the ranks to senior vice president of employee benefits at Hub International, where she spent a decade of her career. Koontz now works at Alliant, where she’ll advise companies on benefit strategies while also being mentored for future leadership opportunities in an industry that is still largely led by men, she says.

“I’ve always had some high aspirations, and Alliant is really excited about that,” Koontz says. “Though I’m not stepping into a direct leadership role right now, they’re very committed to mentoring me, which is huge.”

Beyond her day job, Koontz has built a reputation as a visible and energetic community leader. She co-founded and co-hosts Spokane’s DisruptHR, an event series that gives professionals a platform to share unfiltered ideas about people and workplace culture. She also serves on Gonzaga University's Human Resources Advisory Board, helps facilitate programming through the Inland Northwest Society for Human Resources Management, and frequently emcees or speaks at business events.

At home, she and her husband Troy run a small real estate business, flipping homes and managing rentals, while raising their children: ages 6, 4, and 1 1/2.

Yet Koontz’s trajectory nearly took a different turn. Last year, exhausted by the competing pulls of career and family, Koontz considered walking away from her career to become a stay-at-home mom. Like many driven, overachieving mothers, Koontz says she felt torn: when she was with her kids, she was thinking about work, and when she was at work, she was thinking about her kids. Eventually, she says it felt like her only option was to quit.

At the same time, Koontz was offered a spot in Whitworth’s Institute of Leadership, a yearlong program tailored for rising leaders. Unsure if she should even attend, she says she called a friend who had been through the program and encouraged her to make space for it. For Koontz, it became a turning point.

Placing high expectations on herself to be a mother and a leader felt like she was spinning in a thousand different directions all the time, she says. She tried to do everything herself, telling others not to worry, creating more work for herself, and inadvertently holding back colleagues who wanted to step up.

“A lot of what I was doing and what I thought I was doing in order to become a leader was actually counterproductive to what I wanted to be,” Koontz says. “A lot of what I did last year was realizing that other people are strong too.”

The program helped her rethink leadership as a way to build space for others to take ownership, instead of trying to carry the weight on her own. She welcomed the growth and challenge she experienced through the program, calling it one of the most impactful and challenging years of her life.

Coming out of that experience, Koontz says she feels not only ready, but uniquely qualified to step into leadership.

“(At Alliant) there’s going to be a lot of different leadership opportunities that I’m really excited about,” Koontz says. “They’re also making a very concerted effort to add more women in the industry. Because it’s a very male-dominated industry in general, I’m really hoping to help lead the charge on that and help build other women into that as well.”