Loree D. Jones

Loree Jones has served in top leadership positions in nonprofits, k-12, higher education and government, including managing director, or chief operating officer, of the City of Philadelphia, and executive director of the African Studies Association, an organization of scholars and professionals with an interest in Africa hosted by Rutgers University. She is currently chief of staff for the Chancellor of Rutgers University—Camden. A graduate of Spelman College and Princeton University, she has been recognized for her dedication to public service and commitment to diversity.

She led City Year Philadelphia, an educational non-profit organization that deploys young leaders for a year of service working as tutors, mentors, and role models to public school students. During her tenure, City Year expanded the Diplomas Now partnership, an innovative, multi-year approach to whole-school improvement for the nation’s most challenged middle and high schools. In 2012, Loree was recruited to the School District by the then newly reconstituted School Reform Commission (SRC) to assist its efforts to stabilize the School District at a time of significant organizational crisis and change. She served as chief of staff and executive director for the Office of the SRC providing that body with strategic and administrative support. She advised members of the SRC on policy and operational matters, participated in the review of public charter schools and restructuring of the charter office, and supervised the staff and the offices of the Inspector General and Auditing Services. She then served in the Superintendent’s cabinet as chief of external affairs for the School District of Philadelphia, a role responsible for parent/family and community engagement, strategic communications, and government relations.

She currently serves as vice chair of the boards of Health Partners Plans and Philadelphia Health Partnership (formerly the First Philadelphia Foundation) and is the immediate past chair of the Sunday Breakfast Club. She is a former board member of a wide range of civic organizations, including the Committee of Seventy, Project HOME, the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board, the Philadelphia Planning Commission, and the African American Museum of Philadelphia. She is an alumna and serving for the second time as co-president of Operation Understanding, a cross-cultural program founded in Philadelphia more than 30 years ago to build bridges of understanding between the African American and Jewish communities.