Melinda Colón Cox
Chief Operating Officer & Chief Compliance Officer
Melinda Colón Cox is Chief Operations Officer and Chief Compliance Officer of New Jersey Community Capital (NJCC). She joined NJCC in April 2022 as its first General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, building the organization’s legal and compliance function before stepping into her current role.
As COO and CCO, Melinda leads NJCC’s day-to-day operations and the infrastructure that supports its lending and investment activity in New Jersey and across the country. She oversees the legal and compliance, resource development, human resources and IT teams, and works closely with the leadership team on corporate governance, risk management, strategic planning and business strategy. Her focus includes strengthening operational systems and processes, aligning people, policies and technology with NJCC’s growth, and ensuring the organization runs efficiently and in compliance with state and federal regulatory requirements.
Prior to joining NJCC, Melinda was a litigation partner and Executive Committee member at Parker Ibrahim & Berg LLP (PIB Law), where her practice focused on representing national banks, financial institutions and businesses in matters involving financial services, consumer finance and protection, bankruptcy, contract disputes, and state and federal regulatory compliance. Earlier in her career, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Michael A. Shipp, U.S.D.J., and as an associate at Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer P.C. in its Redevelopment, Strategic Business Development Unit, and Commercial Real Estate teams.
Melinda has long been active in the legal community. She is a past president of the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey and currently serves as Chair of the Cristian Rivera Foundation. She was named a New Jersey Super Lawyers Rising Star from 2014 to 2020 and a New Jersey Super Lawyer from 2021 to 2022, and she received BINJE’S Best Hispanic Business Leaders (2025-2026), the HNBA’s Top Lawyers Under 40 (2019), the New Jersey Law Journal’s New Leaders of the Bar (2019), ROI-NJ Influencers: People of Color Difference Makers (2020), and recognition as one of Latino Magazine’s Lawyers to Keep on the Watch (2020). She proudly serves as a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Judicial and Prosecutorial Appointments Committee (JPAC) and Diversity Committee.
Melinda earned her J.D. from Rutgers School of Law – Newark, where she was Senior Articles Editor of the Rutgers Law Review.