Diane Melley is Executive Director & Senior Advisor for the Philadelphia
Foundation. In that role, she leads planning, execution and partnership-
building, in support of a series of initiatives implementing Philadelphia
Foundation’s second century of civic and philanthropic leadership in the
community. She also leads the building of new strategic relationships
with the corporate sector and corporate volunteering, including the
Greater Philadelphia Corporate Volunteer Council, Regional Chambers of
Commerce, the Arts and Business Council and the Key Skills Hub.
Melley joined the Philadelphia Foundation in August 2018 after 36 years
at IBM, where she was Vice President, IBM Foundation and Vice
President for Global Citizenship Initiatives. That role included IBM’s
global Impact Grants program, which brought technology solutions to
communities around the world, its humanitarian responses to disasters,
and its IBM Global Volunteers program. She also led IBM’s own
Centennial Celebration of Service in 2011 and launched as well as led
IBM’s Veterans Employment Initiative to accelerate hiring of veterans
across a network of major companies. A Systems Engineer and
technologist by training, she led the IBM’s Systems Integration practice
prior to leading the global citizenship team.
A long-time Philadelphian with a bachelor’s in Computer Science from
LaSalle University, Melley holds an MBA from Drexel University, and is a
graduate of Harvard and Stanford Executive Leadership Programs.
Melley is on the boards of Independent Sector, the Points of Light
Institute and IAVE (International Association of Volunteer Effort). She is
a 2001 Eisenhower Fellow to the European Union and Ireland. She
formerly served on the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia
board and as two-term chair of the Philadelphia Education Fund, as well
as two-term chair of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for
Corporate Citizenship.
She is a founding faculty member of the Institute for Corporate Social
Responsibility at Johns Hopkins University and is certified by both IBM
and the Project Management Institute as a Project Executive. She is
passionate about mentoring and providing opportunities for girls and
the under-served in the STEM fields.
She lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband and two daughters.
