John Motley

John H. Motley is a principal in the Hamden, Connecticut based consulting firm of Motley Consulting. He was formerly the President of the Travelers Foundation and its successor the St. Paul Travelers Connecticut Foundation in Hartford, Connecticut. He has held senior level management positions in law, workout, claims, real estate finance, and external relations at Hartford Public Schools, Travelers Insurance, and Chemical Bank in New York (now JPMorgan Chase), where he became the first African American Senior Vice President in commercial banking in NYC.

He is a past President and board member of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, the nation’s oldest art museum, and the Amistad Center for Art and Culture (which has named a room in his honor at the Wadsworth Atheneum, the “John H. Motley Study”). He is a Director Emeritus of both organizations.
Motley is a founder, patron (donated 3,000 items related to Blacks in the Military) past Chairman and Trustee Emeritus of the Board of the Tredegar Civil War Center in Richmond, Va., which after merger with the Museum of the Confederacy is now the American Civil War Museum, and controls Appomattox Court House and the White House of the Confederacy.

For nine years he was the Chairman of the Hartford School Building Committee and is a past Chairman of the Hartford Achievement First Board and the Achievement First Hartford High School Board. Motley is a founding board member of Hartford Achievement First and the Connecticut Advisory Board of Teach for America. He served as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Committee of the UConn School of Social Work and the Presidents Board of Advisors of Capital Community College. He is a past Treasurer and board member of Tougaloo College, a HBCU in Jackson, Mississippi. He is a former Trustee of the Connecticut State University system.

Motley is a past president of the Hartford Economic Development Corporation and the Neighborhoods of Hartford. He is a former director of the Hartford Health Care, Connecticut Historical Society, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, the Center for School Change, the Wilson-Gray YMCA, Billings Forge Community Works, and the Connecticut Bar Foundation. He is a corporator of Hartford Hospital and St. Francis Medical Center. He is a former board member of InterCommunity Health and was formerly a corporator of the Village for Families and Children and of the Hartford Public Library.

A three-time marathoner, Motley is a former board member of the Greater Hartford Marathon Foundation. He is a member of the American Antiquarian Society, a life member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and the Association for the Study of African American History and Culture. He is a member of First Cathedral in Bloomfield, Connecticut and is a Mason.

Motley is a frequent speaker, panelist, moderator, emcee, and charity auctioneer. He has received numerous awards for community service.

John H. Motley is a graduate of Southern Illinois University, DePaul University School of Law, the Stanford University Senior Executive Program, and the Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Ft. Benning, Georgia. He was named to the OCS Hall of Fame in 2021. Motley was the Grand Marshall of the 2004 Connecticut Veterans Day Parade and the 2018 Middletown Veterans Day Parade. He is a decorated Vietnam veteran.