Chief Executive Officer of the Center for First-generation Student Success

Maurice Jones is the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the Center for First-generation Student Success, which drives transformational change for first-generation college and university students by partnering with a growing network of institutions of higher education. He is a veteran of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, with more than two decades of executive leadership experience.

Before joining the Center, Jones founded MJConnects, a professional and business services firm that provides customer acquisition, fundraising, economic mobility and other services to government, nonprofit, and for-profit clients. Prior to launching MJConnects, Jones was the CEO of OneTen, a coalition of leading chief executives and their companies with a mission to upskill, hire, and promote one million Black individuals who do not yet have a four-year college degree into family-sustaining jobs. Under Jones’s leadership, the OneTen coalition grew to more than 70 companies with links to more than 100 talent development organizations. The efforts of OneTen and its member companies led to more than 65,000 people being hired into fulfilling careers with another 19,000 promoted into such positions.

Previously, Jones was the President and CEO of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), one of the country’s largest organizations supporting projects to revitalize communities and catalyze economic opportunity for residents. Under his leadership, LISC doubled its annual community development investments to more than two billion dollars. Earlier in his career, Jones held several distinguished roles in public service, including Secretary of Commerce and Trade for the Commonwealth of Virginia and Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama Administration.