Pastor Cedric Hughes Jones Jr. 

 

Pastor Jones is an ordained Christian minister who has served churches for over 20 years in Boston, Cincinnati and Philadelphia - providing pastoral, preaching, teaching, outreach and leadership development ministries.  He has preached in A.M.E., Anglican and Baptist churches in Barcelona, Spain, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia; and he has spoken at the Annual Session of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. Prior to becoming the pastor of Mt. Zion, he served at the White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia., pastored by Dr. William J. Shaw, past President of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

 

Pastor Jones earned his Master of Divinity Degree from the Boston University School of Theology and is presently completing requirements for the Doctor of Ministry degree from the Lutheran Theological Seminary. Prior to his seminary studies, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania). He is a Ph.D. candidate, Dean's Scholar and Fontaine Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. The most blessed benefit of his studies was meeting his wife, Burunda Prince-Jones, as a fellow college classmate at M.I.T. and their subsequent marriage after she finished Harvard Business School.

 

In addition to his Christian ministry, Pastor Jones has been bi-vocational with a business career as a commercial executive, marketer and engineer with Fortune 50 companies (Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson) and start - up ventures. He launched and managed several well-known consumer brands as a Vice President of Marketing, Executive Director of Sales and Marketing, Executive Director of Licensing & Acquisitions, and Product Director. He was the first person of African descent promoted to Worldwide Vice President in the Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals Group, where he led and grew the Neurology and Psychiatry franchise from $5 billion to $7 billion in sales through the global introduction of new products.

 

In 2006 he created and co-founded ACE 3 (Adults Committed To Excellence Among All American Students) with other fathers, an educational initiative whose mission is to "foster and sustain excellence among African American students.