When Eric Jones (Information Systems '08) arrived at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School to study information systems and telecommunications, technology was already transforming how organizations operated. He wanted to understand not only the technology itself, but also the larger systems behind it.
“I was already interested in technology, but I wanted to understand more than just the technical side of it,” he says. “I wanted to understand how information moved through an organization, how networks connected people and businesses, and how technology decisions ultimately supported the mission of an organization.”
That perspective became the foundation for a career that began hands-on as a systems administrator and steadily expanded into telecommunications, enterprise technology, cybersecurity, and strategy-each step building toward increasingly complex systems and ultimately leading to his current role as director of Cyber Missions at Booz Allen Hamilton.
Learning to see the whole system
Looking back on his time at Carey, Jones says the program taught him to think beyond individual technologies.
“You couldn't just think about the network or the application or the data independently,” he says. “You had to understand how everything connected, where the dependencies were, and what happened to the organization when one part of that system didn't work.”
That system-of-systems perspective has consistently remained a defining thread throughout his career.
“Whether I'm thinking about enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, or a space mission environment, I'm still asking some of those same questions: How does this connect? What does it depend on? Where is the risk? And what happens to the mission if it fails?”
The technology has changed dramatically since Jones graduated, but the underlying questions have endured. In fact, the systems thinking he developed at Carey eventually led him to explore those ideas at a deeper level through his doctoral research, examining how complex systems influence organizational and economic outcomes.
“In many ways, there's a direct line from what I began studying at Carey to the research I ultimately pursued in my doctoral work,” he says.
Following the next problem
When Jones graduated, he envisioned a career in technology and telecommunications. What he could not have predicted was where that foundation would eventually take him.
His career expanded from telecommunications and traditional IT into enterprise technology, cybersecurity, strategy, and space mission infrastructure and security. At each stage, he faced a choice: remain comfortable with what he knew or continue learning.
“One of the most important decisions I made was not allowing myself to become defined by one particular technology,” he says. “That willingness to move toward the next problem has probably shaped my career more than anything else.”
Eventually, he realized that understanding the technology was only part of the equation.
“I wanted to understand the mission, the organization, and the people behind it,” he says. “That's really what moved me from being a technology professional to being a technology leader.”
That evolution also shaped how he approaches leadership. Technology, Jones says, almost never fails in isolation.
“A system can be technically sound and still fail because the requirements weren't understood, people weren't brought along, risks weren't identified, or different parts of the organization weren't communicating.”
In his doctoral research, Jones defines this as “perceived infrastructural fragility,” a condition in which a system remains operational, but its capacity to absorb additional growth, complexity, or disruption is increasingly constrained. When something goes wrong, his instinct is not to focus immediately on the technology—or the person closest to the problem.
“I want to understand the entire system first,” he says.
Where technology meets mission
Jones has long been fascinated by how technology connects things. Early in his career, that meant telecommunications: networks, infrastructure, and moving information from one place to another. Today, that curiosity extends to far more complex environments involving cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, data, computing, communications, and space systems.
“Space is especially fascinating because all of these disciplines come together,” he says. “You have communications, networks, computing, data, cybersecurity, and mission operations all working as an interconnected system.”
What keeps the work meaningful, he says, is that the technology is not an end in itself.
“These aren't abstract technology problems. There is a mission on the other side of that infrastructure. People are depending on those systems to work, and that gives the work a very different level of meaning.”
That belief also shapes the legacy he hopes to leave.
“I don't want the technology itself to be the story,” he says. “Technology is ultimately an enabler. What matters is what we were able to accomplish with it and how society benefits from it.”
Giving back—and looking ahead
Jones' relationship with Carey has grown over time. As a student, he was focused on building his career and developing his technical and business knowledge. Later, after leading people and organizations and working on increasingly complex technology challenges, he began thinking more about the responsibility alumni have to the institutions that helped prepare them.
That led him back to Carey through service on the Dean's Advisory Board and as an alumni advisor to the Master of Science in Information Systems and Artificial Intelligence for Business program.
The connection feels especially timely. Jones came to Carey to study how information systems were changing organizations. Today, he is helping the school think about how to prepare students for what he sees as one of the most consequential technological transformations of this generation.
“AI is not simply another technology that organizations will adopt,” he says. “It is increasingly becoming part of the underlying architecture through which decisions are made, knowledge is created, work is organized, and institutions operate.”
For Jones, that makes this an important moment for business education. Leaders need to understand not only what AI can do, he says, but how it should be deployed, governed, and integrated into complex organizations.
Advice for a changing world
Jones' advice to students is simple: Don't become too attached to any one technology.
“Learn it. Become good at it. But understand that whatever technology you're learning today will eventually change. What lasts is your ability to understand systems, solve problems, communicate, learn quickly, and work with people.”
He also urges students to understand the business behind the technology and to become comfortable moving between technical and leadership conversations.
“If you can move comfortably between those two worlds, you become incredibly valuable.”
If he could return to his own days at Carey, Jones says he would give himself similar advice: Focus less on predicting which technology will win and more on understanding the fundamentals, stay curious, keep learning, and take time to appreciate the people around you.
“Carey provides an opportunity for connection,” he says. “Don't miss it.”
Nearly two decades after graduating, Jones still approaches complex challenges through the same systems lens he developed as a Carey student. The technology may be more advanced, the environments more complex, and the missions more consequential, but the ability to see how everything connects has remained at the center of his work—and continues to guide the way he thinks about what comes next.
