Helayne Jones is an Education Consultant specializing in Education strategies in Innovation, Personalized Learning, Scaling and Sustaining non-profits and Leadership. She is a Sr. Strategy Advisor to New Profit, a national venture philanthropy fund. Prior to that she served as a Sr. Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation developing and implementing the Innovation & Personalized Learning strategy. Prior to joining the foundation, Jones was the President & CEO of the Colorado Education Initiative (CEI). As the leader of CEI, a dynamic, growing organization, Jones drew on 15 years of expertise gained as an education consultant, her experience as a college professor, and her previous work as a marketing executive. Her consulting experience includes work with, for profit & not for profit education firms, school districts and education foundations in Colorado and throughout the country to focus on systems change resulting in improved student outcomes for all students. She also has extensive experience with private-sector and nonprofit organizations to facilitate strategic planning, board communications, and managing the impact of change.
Jones has been an active philanthropist and community leader. She currently serves on the board of Throughline Learning; The Learning Accelerator; EdsUp. Past board involvement includes InnovateEDU, NGLC, the Boulder Valley School Board for 8 years, 4 of those years as Board President; past trustee of the Rose Community Foundation, past chair of the Health committee and the Education Committee. She served as a member of Governor Hickenlooper’s Education Leadership Council and a board member of the Boulder Community Health Foundation.
Prior to consulting, Jones spent three years as an adjunct professor at Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y., and 12 years in the technology industry including several executive marketing positions at Wang Laboratories.
She received her doctoral degree in educational administration from the Columbia University Teachers College with an emphasis on school reform. She received a master’s in English from the University of Massachusetts and a bachelor’s, honors college, from the University of Michigan.