Stephanie J. Jones, President

Stephanie J. Jones brings to the Nathaniel R. Jones Foundation decades of experience as a lawyer, nonprofit executive, policy expert, thought leader, and senior-level government official. Her dedication to preserving and advancing her father’s legacy and to “Answering the Call” that he instilled in her from childhood, is a driving force behind her work.

A skilled attorney, educator, activist, and writer, Stephanie was recently a lead author and editor of the Report by the House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack on the Capitol. For the past several years, she has been a key consultant to the NAACP, directing the national organization’s Voter Protection legal effort and providing other strategic guidance to the president and senior staff.

Stephanie served in the Obama Administration as Deputy Chief of Staff, Senior Counselor to the Secretary and Chief Opportunities Officer for the U.S. Department of Transportation. In these roles, Stephanie advised Secretary Anthony Foxx on an array of issues and ensured that all of the Department’s transportation infrastructure decisions and funded projects connect people to opportunities, create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, and are responsive to the needs and aspirations of the people they impact. In this role, she directed priority initiatives, including Ladders of Opportunity, LadderSTEP, My Brother’s Keeper, Every Place Counts, and was part of the core senior leadership team that managed more than 55,000 employees and a $70 billion budget.

From 2014 to 2016, Stephanie also served at the Secretary’s request in a dual capacity as the Acting Director of USDOT’s Departmental Office of Civil Rights. In that role, she oversaw the Department’s equal opportunity programs across USDOT’s 10 Operating Administrations, including Title VI, ADA and language access compliance and enforcement, Environmental Justice, and the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program, which guarantees small businesses owned by women and minorities a fair opportunity to compete for billions of dollars of federally-funded transportation contracts across the country.

Stephanie previously served for five years as the Executive Director of the National Urban League Policy Institute, the Urban League’s research, policy and advocacy arm. In this role, she was also editor-in-chief of The State of Black America, and conceived, conducted and wrote the groundbreaking study Sunday Morning Apartheid study, which triggered a significant and measurable increase in the on-air racial diversity of network and cable news programming. 

Prior to her NUL tenure, Stephanie served as Chief Judiciary Committee Counsel to Senator John Edwards and was Chief of Staff to the late Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio.

From 1994 until 2000, Stephanie was an appointee in the Clinton Administration, serving as Secretary’s Regional Representative in the U.S. Department of Education, where she was the Administration’s education point person for a six-state region.  During this time, she also extensively traveled with President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton, coordinating scores of events and domestic and international trips, including the President’s state visits to Africa, Europe, Asia, and the First Lady’s Save Our Treasures Tour.

Before entering government service, Stephanie was an Associate Professor of Law at Northern Kentucky University’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law, where she taught Civil and Criminal Procedure, Civil Rights Law, Entertainment Law, and Trial Advocacy. Stephanie has also served on the adjunct faculty of Northwestern University School of Law and practiced law with the firm Graydon, Head & Ritchey in Cincinnati. Prior to her legal career, Stephanie was a staff reporter at the Cincinnati Post and the personal assistant to Lionel Richie and the Commodores.

Stephanie earned her B.A. from Smith College and her J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she was a Fellow in the Urban Morgan Institute of Human Rights. She also attended Tuskegee University as an exchange student.