Current & Past National Presidents

Shirley Jones is a Senior Executive Service (SES) Member at the U. S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). As the first African American female in the agency’s history to be appointed to the position of Managing Associate General Counsel, within GAO’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) she has management and leadership responsibility for three of the office’s legal teams focused on budget and appropriations law and congressional oversight. Ms. Jones is also a certified leadership and diversity and inclusion trainer on GAO’s adjunct faculty. For over 20 years she also taught accounting and tax law classes part time at the law school and undergraduate level.

Within the national organization of Blacks In Government (BIG), Ms. Jones assumed the position of BIG National President on January 1, 2021, after having served as National Executive Vice President for three years, and previously as Region XI Council President, National Legal Review Committee Chair, and GAO-USACE Chapter President, amongst several other positions. Believing strongly in BIG’s mission of advocating for equal employment opportunity and a level playing field, Ms. Jones considers herself both an employee advocate and a career development trainer.

In her advocacy role, Ms. Jones has twice had the opportunity to testify before Congress on the lack of diversity in the government’s Senior Executive Service (SES) and the impact of pay for performance on employee morale. And, while serving as BIG’s National Legal Review Committee Chair, she worked with rebuilding BIG’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Institute and in 2009 developed recommendations and wrote the first EEO advocacy paper sent to Congress from BIG since the mid ’90s. In addition to radio and television appearances, Ms. Jones previously co-hosted the BIG Experience radio show on Radio One.