Vera Jones

Vera Jones, “The Empathy Coach,” is a motivational speaker, leadership coach, author, award-winning television and radio broadcaster, and Syracuse University Hall-of-Fame Scholar-Athlete. She offers resilience, empathic leadership, communication, public speaking, DEIB, wellness, and conflict resolution keynote speaking and training. She is an inspiring, relatable, and often humorous speaker who thrives on empathy and emotional intelligence to connect and inspire. Jones is also known for her extensive, veteran background in broadcasting, serving over 30 years as a women’s basketball analyst and reporter for various networks, including ESPN, Fox Sports, Madison Square Garden Network, NBA-TV, and the Big Ten Network. She has coached college basketball, performed on stage as an actress with the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company, and entertained as a stand-up comedian. Known as “Professor Jones” at the University of North Florida, she helps to expand young minds in the communication department teaching public speaking.

Jones is an MTI Certified Mediator and Trainer in Conflict Resolution and the founder of both Play Through the Foul Team Building & Communication Training and the Perseverance Speaker’s Academy. She also facilitates executive coaching with Vistage Florida. In the space of diversity, equity, and inclusion Jones is the past President for the non-profit Colorful Talks, and former Parents Council member of the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind. Jones is honored and humbled to have become a Hall of Fame inductee with the Boys & Girls Club of America Alumni (2023) and the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO 2022).

A Prince George’s County, Maryland native residing in Jacksonville, Florida, Jones deeply understands the personal trials of life. She seeks to use her gifts of service in her faith-based mission to help people maximize their powers of empathy to connect, communicate, collaborate, and conflict resolve.