Shaping Change: Announcing Leadership Transitions at AMP

Jenifer Daniels, who joined AMP as a Co-Executive Director in late 2020, transitioned out of her role at the end of last year.  During her time at AMP, she made contributions in the areas of organizational systems, operations, and culture that will be felt for years to come.  She remains an important part of the AMP network and is continuing to advance media for liberation in her new role as ED of Talk Tech Association, a collective of Black women tech founders.  

Jeanette Lee, will also be transitioning out of her role of Co-ED at the end of February.  Jeanette has led AMP since her early twenties, nurturing the organization’s evolution from a 500 person grassroots conference to the massive infrastructure for media-based movement-building it is today. She has been working towards her succession for the past three years, applying the same care and vision to the work of leaving AMP as she did to stewarding it’s growth over the past decade.  Jeanette will remain at AMP in an advisory capacity for the next year. Read Jeanette’s goodbye letter here.

We are saddened to say goodbye to these phenomenal leaders. We are also proud and appreciative of the ways in which they have nurtured new leadership from within AMP, who are now prepared to step into the roles of Co-EDs. 

We are thrilled to announce that Mars Marshall and Toni Moceri will be assuming the roles of AMP Co-Executive Directors, effective March 1, 2022.

Mars and Toni have more than a decade of combined leadership at AMP.  

Mars joined AMP in 2017 and worked alongside Morgan Willis before becoming the director of the Allied Media Conference in 2019.  They stewarded the Chrysalis Year and produced the first ever all-virtual AMC in 2020.  They are a Black, trans, lifelong Detroiter, who centers these lived experiences in their commitment to media for liberation. They are a poet, who has honed their craft and applies the same level of care and dedication to the art of convening communities.  They are a trained social worker with impeccable skills of listening and problem-solving.  They are a Libra, who moves gracefully through ambiguity and complexity.  

Toni joined AMP in 2016 after participating in AMP’s Detroit Future Media training program.  She worked closely with Mike Medow to found AMP’s fiscal sponsorship program, growing the portfolio from 12 projects in 2014 to 140 today.  Toni is a former elected official, who knows how to both navigate and disrupt institutional power structures in order to unlock the resources our communities need.  She is an Aquarian weaver of connections, attentive to both the big picture possibilities and the fine-grained details at once.  Toni is a dancer who finds rhythm with others easily, building teams that can move together.  

Both Mars and Toni share a commitment to facilitative leadership, participatory processes, and advancing media for liberation. We are confident that Mars and Toni will co-lead AMP into its next, most liberatory iteration. 

As we embark on this next phase of AMP’s journey we are embracing the fluidity of leadership within our organizations and movements. We are remembering what Octavia taught us: that the only lasting truth is change. 

We are also holding the questions that we began asking during the AMC’s year in Chrysalis, and have continued asking ever since:  how do we want to grow? what kind of culture can hold that growth? how can we create a life-affirming organization that models the world we need?  Amidst the sea of changes, these questions remain alive and open, as we continue experimenting and living into the answers.  Stay tuned for more information about what’s next for AMP coming soon.