Printable Biography of Terry Jones

Terry Jones led the company as President and Chief Executive Officer from its founding until May 2002. Previously, Jones served as Chief Information Officer at Sabre Inc. In his 24 years at Sabre, Jones held various executive positions including President of Decision Technologies, Vice President of Applications Development and Vice President of Product Development. Prior to Sabre, Jones joined American Airlines in 1978 as Director of Product Development when American Airlines acquired Agency Data Systems, a Florida based mini-computer accounting systems company. He became president of the division when it moved to Dallas/Fort Worth. A graduate of Denison University in Granville, OH, Jones entered the travel industry in 1971 as a travel agent with Vega Travel in Chicago. He later served five years as a vice president of Travel Advisors, a company specializing in business travel to Eastern Europe and the USSR, with offices in Chicago and Moscow. Jones serves on the Board of Directors of Entrust,Inc. and Overture Services, Inc. He is currently a principal of Essential Ideas, a consultancy which he co-founded to help companies in their transition to the digital economy. He recently joined General Catalyst Partners, an early stage Venture Capital Investment Firm as a Special.

Programs:

Terry has a new program on Entrepreneurship...perfect for real estate groups, financial groups and franchises - people who find themselves competing against one another but yet under the same company. As Terry created Travelocity.com out of Sabre, he has first hand knowledge of the challenges these types of groups face and great ideas to help them further the success of their own businesses. A blurb follows.

The story of the entrepreneur in the garage is well known. But how does one build a startup inside a huge corporation? How do you successfully innovate in large and sometimes bureaucratic organizations?

Terry started Travelocity.com as a department inside the multi billion dollar Sabre Corporation. Starting with an idea and a team of ten he grew the department into a three billion dollar public company with over 35 million members and 1200 employees.

Intrapreneurs face different challenges than entrepreneurs. Competitors are as likely to be internal as external. In this world who you report to can be as important to an intrapreneur as building a brand is to the entrepreneur. His story of how one navigates the corporate power structure to turn an idea into a company has applicability for anyone with a new product or a new idea.

Of course he continues to address the topics of leadership, e-commerce, branding, marketing and innovation in the future of business.