When You Win, We All Win
Business can be tough. It’s even tougher when you don’t have many who fully identify with who you are. The Onyx Table unites those who have forged a path to the upper echelon of professional life but still have a drive for more. Your table mates are committed to your success because we rise and stand strong collectively.
Our Founder
"I come up hard, baby, I had to fight; Took care of my business, wit' all my might. I come up hard, I had to win; Then start all over, and win again."
- Marvin Gaye’s ‘Trouble Man’
Press Play… Born in Philadelphia, PA; raised in poverty by a single mother; educated in an urban public school system; Black.
Fast Forward… Earned a bachelor’s in computer science from the best computer-science school in the nation; earned a master’s degree from an Ivy League university; became the Chief Technology Officer of a publicly traded company; founded and led a technology company as CEO for 16 years; as CEO raised millions in investment capital, produced hyper-growth (INC 5000 Award recipient for 3 consecutive years) and engineered a successful sale of the company to a strategic buyer, becoming a rare exited tech founder; Blessed.
Statistically speaking, my story is improbable; yet quiet as it is kept, there are numerous stories like mine and many that are much more remarkable. But there still aren’t enough. The road to professional success in corporate leadership or entrepreneurship is rough, and I know my path would have been easier if I had meaningful access to peers, mentors and role models that I culturally identified with. So, my life mission is now to curate, cultivate, connect and celebrate these stories so under-represented and under-appreciated business champions don’t have to come up quite as hard as Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man.
I hope you’ll join me to both enrich and be enriched by our collective professional powerbase.
Lee Jones
Chief Executive - The Onyx Table
Our Logo
Our logo is a creative combination of the West African Adinkra symbols "Eban" and "Boa Me Na Me Mmoa Wo" which represent love, safety and cooperation. This combination represents the ethos of The Onyx Table. We want our members to feel safe at a table with like minds and like backgrounds. A safe place to help and be helped so that collectively we can reach our goals and bring hope to our community.
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The Table's Crossbeam
We are continually growing The Onyx Table to give seats to all who are ready to take their place among us. Such an expansive table needs a solid reinforcement to undergird it for strength and stability. That support is the Table’s Crossbeam which encapsulates the structural tenets of value and commitment that span the member experience.
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Deliberate Momentum – We are organized to ensure the intentional and persistent development of both your business and you as an executive. This is not a social club. This is not simple networking. This is not a masterclass to impart a technique. It is a fusion of likeminded executives who have come to this table to execute their advancement agendas, and to help their tablemates do the same. We honor this spirit by structuring the time you invest for optimal growth and progress.
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Harmony of Voices – The uniqueness of our unity demands that our perspectives infuse and impact the business ecosystem at large. We are not a monolith that speaks as one, but rather a harmony of viewpoints and insights which flow from a common cultural reality. We curate, arrange and amplify our voices so the whole world hears a chorus which cannot be silenced.
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Steel Sharpening Steel – We challenge, refine, and elevate each other through rigorous dialogue, consistent practices and shared experience. We select strong professionals to bolster you in your peer group, but your cohort is only the first level of sharing. We orchestrate formal value-rich symbiosis with members beyond your group enabling everyone to both give and receive meaningful inputs that make us better collectively and individually.