Boland Timothy Jones is an American entrepreneur and executive. He is best known as the founder, chairman and CEO of PGi (Premiere Global Services), Inc., a multinational corporation and global provider of conferencing and collaboration solutions. Its products include audio conferencing, web conferencing, videoconferencing and virtual meeting solutions.
Background
Boland Jones was born and raised in the city of Louisville, Kentucky. Born into a family of nine, Boland has four sisters and two brothers. From an early age, Boland began working at his father’s dry cleaning business working the counter or cleaning the machines. By age 14, he began cutting grass and at 16, learned how to resurface pavement and started repaving people’s driveways. He attended college at Miami University of Ohio where he earned a degree in finance in 1982. In the mid-1980s, Jones started his first company, American Network Exchange (AMNEX). AMNEX sold calling cards, which Jones developed, to help military personnel connect with their loved ones. The cards allowed users to bill pay phone calls to their home phones or credit cards. Jones sold AMNEX in 1990.
In 1991, Jones moved to Atlanta and founded a new company, Premiere Technologies, Inc., which enabled users to retrieve voice messages, make conference calls and send and receive faxes. This business would eventually become Premiere Global Services, Inc., now known as PGi. Jones successfully took the company public on NASDAQ in 1996 and on the NYSE as well shortly thereafter. Currently, Jones remains active as PGi’s Founder, Chairman and CEO and has grown PGi into a successful virtual meetings company, where he spearheaded development of PGi’s latest two virtual meeting solutions, iMeet and GlobalMeet. Beyond his work at PGi, Boland has helped fund and launch more than 100 companies.
Career
In the mid 80s, Jones started his first company, American Network Exchange (AMNEX), which provided the industry’s first alternatives to the AT&T operator service. At the time AT&T, a giant in the communications industry, owned the majority of the infrastructure necessary to run AMNEX’s applications. “They were such a behemoth,” explains Jones, “that the crumbs they left on the floor became 50 billion dollar industries.” Jones, a business communications services visionary, foresaw the future growth of the telecom industry and picked up some of those crumbs. “AT&T never cared about applications, so you can always beat those infrastructure players by renting their infrastructure and using it for inventive applications.” Jones sold AMNEX in 1990. In 1991, He moved to Atlanta and founded a new company, Premiere Technologies, Inc., which enabled users to retrieve voice messages, make conference calls and send and receive faxes. This business would eventually become Premiere Global Services, Inc., now known as PGi. Jones successfully took the company public on NASDAQ in 1996 and on the NYSE as well shortly thereafter. Currently, Jones remains active as PGi’s Founder, Chairman and CEO and has grown PGi into a successful virtual meetings company, where he spearheaded development of PGi’s latest two virtual meeting solutions, iMeet and GlobalMeet. Beyond his work at PGi, Boland has helped fund and launch more than 100 companies.