Executive Director
Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance
Jamila Medley is a passionate advocate and educator for the advancement and growth of the cooperative economy. In her work with existing and startup co-ops, she provides support for leadership development, cooperative economics education, navigating group dynamics, and creating adaptive systems to support group process and learning. She is Executive Director of the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance.
Jamila was introduced to co-ops in 2012 as a staff collective member at Mariposa Food Co-op. She’s spent over twenty years serving mission-based organizations in the nonprofit and cooperative sectors.
Jamila holds a master’s degree in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania and earned her bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies from Connecticut College. She’s a native of Brooklyn, NY and lives in Philadelphia being a creative homemaker who finds revolutionary joy in making her home a sanctuary for herself and loved ones. She was the 2018 Philadelphia Community Fellow for the Shared Economics in Equitable Development Fellowship, serves on the board of directors for Movement Alliance Project (formerly Media Mobilizing Project), on the advisory board for An Economy of Our Own, and is a consultant with Columinate.