Helayne Jones is a Principal at Aegis Management, LLC, specializing in Education strategies in Innovation, Personalized Learning, Scaling and Sustaining non-profits and Leadership. Previously 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), formerly known as the Colorado Legacy Foundation.  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.


In addition to her role at the Colorado Education Initiative, Jones has been an active community leader. She served on the Boulder Valley School Board for 8 years, four of those years as Board President. She is a past trustee of the Rose Community Foundation, past chair of the Health committee and the past chair of their Education Committee. She is a member of Governor Hickenlooper’s Education Leadership Council and a board member of the Boulder Community Health Foundation. Previously, Dr. Jones served as a member of Governor Ritter’s P20 Education Council; a director of the Colorado Commission for High School Reform and has served on a variety of boards in the greater Denver Boulder community.

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.