Download a photograph of Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins
Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is the Executive Director of Working Partnerships USA, named by San Jose Magazine as one of the 100 most powerful people in Silicon Valley and one of "40 to watch under 40" by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. As a woman of color, she has distinguished herself as an innovative leader in the Silicon Valley and led the way for emerging leaders in the American progressive movement, directing campaigns to win policy victories on local, regional, and state levels. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal online, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, America at Work, NBC News and ABC News.
After graduating from California State University-Northridge in 1998, Ms. Ellis-Lamkins joined the staff of Working Partnerships USA as the group's education coordinator. She led the Labor/Community Leadership Institute and created its first senior fellows program. In this capacity Ms. Ellis-Lamkins also created the Faith in Action training program for area clergy and lay leaders.
Under her leadership, the nation’s first county-based universal children’s health insurance program has expanded its coverage to more than 125,000 children and has been replicated in 20 other counties statewide. Ms. Ellis-Lamkins led the fight to create one of the first community benefits agreements in the country, which provided community standards for a large scale economic development project in San Jose. As a founder of Team San José, she pioneered a new model for public/private management of convention center and cultural venues. She led the launch of the Partnership for Working Families, a national coalition to bring the principles of good jobs and community benefits to local economic development. And she gained the support of private developers and environmentalists to include privately-financed community health care clinics as part of the infrastructure for Coyote Valley, a mega-urban reserve in San Jose slated to house 70,000 new residents.
Ms. Ellis-Lamkins also serves as the Executive Officer of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, representing more than 110,000 working families in Santa Clara and San Benito counties. An alumna of American Leadership Forum and has served on the boards of the Progressive Technology Project, New World Foundation, and the Women's Fund of Silicon Valley and serves on the City of San Jose General Plan Update Task Force, Coyote Valley Specific Plan Task Force, and the Central Labor Council Advisory Committee.
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