Alba Martinez isn’t a typical Philadelphia commerce director. And that’s what Mayor Cherelle Parker wants.

Alba Martinez came to Philadelphia in the early 1990s as a 22-year-old law school graduate hoping to “advocate for people who didn’t really have a voice.”

In January, she started a new role as Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s commerce director, serving as city’s liaison to a constituency that very much has a voice: the business community.

Martinez, 61, is the first Latina to lead the agency, and one of the highest-ranking LGBTQ city officials in Philadelphia history. While she has worked in the corporate world, as an executive with Vanguard, Martinez spent most of her career in the local nonprofit sector and with the city as child welfare commissioner.

It’s an atypical résumé for a commerce director, a role often filled by people who have spent their careers in the corporate sector. But it’s no accident.

Parker wants the world to know Philly is “open for business.” But her vision relies less on the familiar mix of tax cuts and incentives, and more on supporting small neighborhood businesses, especially those owned by Black and brown Philadelphians.

“My ability to understand what’s going on in the neighborhood as well as what’s going in the business sector and be able to connect with individuals across the entire spectrum of Philadelphians economically is an advantage,” Martinez said, “and I think the mayor sees it and values it.”

The challenge for Martinez will be balancing the administration’s focus on neighborhoods with the traditional work of commerce directors, such as attracting international corporations that often want to be personally courted before picking a new location in the United States.

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She’ll also have to pitch Parker’s agenda, which this year includes no tax cuts despite the city having significant cash reserves, to such groups as the local chambers of commerce that annually advocate for reductions to the wage and business taxes.

Former City Councilmember Maria Quiñones Sánchez, who has known Martinez for three decades, said Parker’s decision “sends the message that we’re a majority Black and brown city and we have not moved the needle on this.”

“She’s seen billions at Vanguard and what they’ve done, but she also understands that the economics of the neighborhood — the small store, the hospital, and all of these things that improve people’s quality of life — has an economic component to it that is also a job-creator,” said Quiñones Sánchez, who ran for mayor last year.

Martinez, who was floated as a potential mayoral candidate in 2015, lives in Center City with her wife, Roberta Trombetta, who has also held high-profile roles in the nonprofit sector and the state government. Martinez said she wants “to be known as the commerce director for every Philadelphian and every business first.”

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“But I do think the fact that I’m Latina and gay is is an issue of representation,” she said. “If I can make people feel that they belong in the business community, they belong in government, they believe they belong in positions of leadership, then I feel like that is an honor and a privilege.”

The daughter of of two college professors, Martinez grew up in Puerto Rico and earned a degree from the University of Puerto Rico at 19 before attending law school at Georgetown University in Washington.

During law school, she interned in Immokalee, Fla., one of the poorest communities in the country, and decided to pursue public interest law.

When she came to Philadelphia in 1985 to work for Community Legal Services, she didn’t know a soul. But she found community by looking up the arts and culture organization Taller Puertorriqueño in the phonebook and taking the 47 bus to the Puerto Rican enclave in North Philly. (Based on that experience, Martinez in 2022 produced a short film called La Guagua 47, which celebrates Philly’s increasingly diverse Latino community.)

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Martinez’s big break came in the early 1990s, when she was tapped to lead Congreso de Latinos Unidos, a venerable Philadelphia Latino community organization that was then mired in scandal.

With the help of reform-minded board members, including Quiñones-Sánchez, Martinez rebuilt Congreso’s reputation. She started a first-of-its-kind program for domestic violence victims, as well as a job-training program with the carpenters union.

“It became a master’s degree in organizational management, if you will, on the street,” she said.

Martinez also began developing a now well-known reputation for cultivating talent.

“In her early days of Congreso, the IRS was camped out at her office,” said Cynthia Figueroa, who worked for her there and later became a deputy mayor. “She took over an agency that probably was going to disintegrate and disappear, and she went in at a very young age and really turned it around.”

Martinez seems to have a turnaround story for every stop in her career.

Her success at Congreso led her to connections with City Hall, and Mayor John F. Street in 2000 tapped her to become child welfare commissioner and head of the Department of Human Services. She implemented changes credited with lowering the number of children in foster care, and increased the agency’s focus on preventing situations where children are removed from families.

She then became president and CEO of United Way, where she implemented a policy shift to fund projects with measurable goals rather than simply doling out money to nonprofits. Her relationships with United Way’s corporate backers, including Vanguard, led to a new job.

“It was extremely eye-opening because I didn’t really understand — to quote Cardi B — how money moves,” Martinez said. “My 25-year-old self would never have thought I would end up in the corporate sector.”

Her 12 years at Vanguard included a period leading the retail services department, which managed $600 billion in assets and had seven million clients.

After leaving in 2020, she spent time in Florida, returned to Philly, and was semi-retired while working on community projects.

Then Parker won the mayor’s race — and Martinez knew what she wanted to do.

“I expressed interest in the position,” Martinez said. “It’s a decision primarily based on love, love for our city ... and also a huge sense of optimism for the leadership our mayor is bringing.”

Commerce directors under Kenney and former Mayor Michael A. Nutter include people whose previous careers were in development, architecture, health care, higher education, and business process services. None had as much experience in charitable and social services work as Martinez.

The mayor’s public safety plans have dominated the early days of her administration. But as a Council member, Parker was active on small-business issues, and Martinez is spearheading a number of her top priorities, such as the expansion of a commercial-corridor cleaning program Parker championed in Council, and an effort to streamline permitting requirements.

Martinez is also planning to hold Commerce Department office hours across the city for small-business owners to learn about programs that could help them grow.

Chellie Cameron, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, said she meets regularly with Martinez, who she said is “working to figure out exactly what her vision looks like.”

“Clearly, it’s what the mayor is doing, and the neighborhood focus, and small Black- and brown-owned business interests,” she said.

Martinez, however, will also have to travel across the country and internationally to encourage businesses to invest in Philly. Lauren Swartz, president and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, said building those relationships is no simple matter.

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“As Americans, we show up and stick out our hands and say, ‘I got a deal for you. You want to do business together?’” said Swartz, who was a deputy commerce director under Kenney. “And most of the rest of the world says, ‘It’s nice to meet you. Let’s build a relationship first.’”

Swartz praised Parker and Martinez’s agenda of first focusing on local businesses, and said her organization’s job is to maintain international ties until top city officials need to get involved.

Martinez said her plan for business attraction is to ensure that groups working to promote Philly — from her department to the chambers of commerce to real estate firms — do so with a unified message “highlighting Philadelphia’s assets and being more assertive and more intentional about promoting Philadelphia as a destination for business.”

But her top priority is supporting businesses that are already here.

“That is a really important agenda,” she said. “It is not secondary. It is primary.”