Marcia Marley is the President of BlueWaveNJ and Succeed2gether. Through these two organizations, she has devoted her life to advancing progressive policies and candidates as well as improving the opportunities and resources available to families in Essex County. Her work has been recognized by countless organizations and individuals. 

Under Marcia’s leadership, BlueWaveNJ has become a highly respected, effective organization dedicated to direct advocacy. It has mobilized thousands of voters each year to elect progressive candidates and advocated for universal health care coverage, marriage equality, economic and environmental justice, racial and gender equality, and voting rights.

Alarmed by the increasing difficulties faced by low and moderate-income families, Marcia started a nonpartisan charity in 2009 called Succeed2gether. Marcia’s mission for the organization was to reduce the opportunity gap by providing free programs for families in need including after-school tutoring, all day four-week summer enrichment, math and literacy workshops, computer, and coding classes.  Marcia also started the Montclair Literary Festival which hosts over a 100+ well-known authors annually.  It has become the premier Literary Festival in New Jersey.

Following graduate school in economics at UC Berkeley, Marcia taught macroeconomics at New York University and wrote research papers on the growing inequality of wealth and income with Professor Edward Wolff. She worked as a senior emerging markets economist in the financial sector both in New York and London and traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, writing and speaking on the credit conditions in these countries.

She is an active member of the Democratic National Committee and serves or has served on the Boards of New Jersey Citizen Action, Emerge New Jersey, New Jersey Policy Perspectives where she served as Chair through Dec. 2023, New Jersey Working Families Alliance, Montclair Film Festival, Ceasefire New Jersey, New Jersey Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Essex County Land Trust, and NJ Economic Development Authority. Marcia and her husband Peter moved from London to Montclair in 1988 where they raised their two children, Julia and Daniel.