Merande has more than 7 years of experience in software development, operations, project management, and administration. At hotelAVE, she began as an Executive Assistant and later Senior Executive Assistant to CEO Michelle Russo, but her role quickly expanded to touch many areas of the business, including administrative operations, project management, marketing, and business development.

• Prior to joining hotelAVE, Merande was a Software Engineer for over five years, developing applications and software for Innovative Defense Technologies (IDT), a Department of Defense contractor based in Fall River. In this role, she served as project manager and lead Electronic Warfare (EW) specialist at Lockheed Martin in Syracuse, where she focused on automating active test processes
• Following her work in the defense sector, Merande joined SimpliSafe, a home security company, where she contributed to the development of platforms supporting in-house customer service and emergency notifications to both customers and monitoring centers.

Merande graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.