Lisa S. Jones spent four years at NASA, built a career in supplier diversity at AT&T, then did something nobody had done before: compressed a high-definition video into a 15-kilobyte file that plays automatically inside an email. Read the rest of her story here.
Today's Builders · The Black Executive Journal™ Montgomery, Alabama / Atlanta, Georgia · Marketing Technology · EyeMail Inc. · Founded 2004
— Born April 1, 1974 in Montgomery, Alabama; youngest of three daughters; grew up watching her father open an ice cream shop from scratch — an early and formative model of what building something from nothing looks like; worked at McDonald's as a teenager, where she has said she learned her first fundamental business principles: the value of customer interaction and the importance of communication skills
— Earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Logistics and Procurement and an MBA from Alabama A&M University — a historically Black university in Huntsville, Alabama; subsequently studied marketing management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth; currently pursuing an executive degree at Harvard University
— Spent four years as a logistics and supply chain expert at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; was laid off when the program ended, and relocated to Atlanta — a decision she has described as the turning point that redirected her career
— Worked in supplier diversity for AT&T in Atlanta; became a thought leader and public speaker in the supplier diversity space; the experience shaped her understanding of how large corporations make purchasing decisions and how minority-owned businesses could position themselves to access those relationships
— Her mother died unexpectedly at age 61 — the moment Jones has cited directly as the catalyst for her decision to become an entrepreneur; it forced a reckoning with what she actually wanted to build before time ran out
— Founded EyeMail Inc. in Atlanta in 2004; filed her first patent on video-in-email technology the same year; spent five years developing the product simultaneously while working full-time as a corporate executive; could not find U.S. development agencies willing to work with her and built the technical team internationally — engineering in India and Pakistan, video compression in Hong Kong and the Philippines
— Became the first African American woman to participate in Microsoft's Mentor/Protégé Innovation Lab Program; the relationship with Microsoft proved foundational — providing access to senior architects, a technical roadmap, and the institutional credibility that would later attract Fortune 500 clients
— EyeMail's technology compresses high-quality 4K video into files as small as 15 kilobytes, enabling HD video to play automatically in the body of an email without requiring a link click or browser redirect; independently verified to increase email open rates by more than 60% and generate 5-8 times higher click-through rates than standard email campaigns
— Won the Season 1 championship of the CBS reality competition show The Next Tycoon in 2008; named one of Atlanta Tribune's "Top 8 Atlanta Businesses to Watch" in 2008; received the Stevie Award for "Most Innovative Company of the Year" in 2010; was a Shark Tank Season 4 finalist in 2013; received Delta Air Lines' "Catalyst of the Year" award at the 19th Annual Star Awards in 2018; was a finalist for Microsoft's Supplier Prestige Award for Diverse-Owned Supplier of the Year in 2022
— Client roster includes Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Microsoft, Major League Baseball, Porsche North America, PepsiCo, Aetna, The Home Depot, the Atlanta Braves, and Time Warner; operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, Pakistan, and Mexico
— EyeMail grew 71% between 2021 and 2023; landed at No. 181 on Inc. magazine's 2023 Southeast regional list of fastest-growing companies; delivers managed services projects 40% faster since adopting Microsoft 365; won the TAG Invest Connect pitch competition for diverse founders in November 2023
Lisa Jones did not grow up with a clear path to tech entrepreneurship.
She grew up watching her father open an ice cream shop — learning what it looked like to build something commercial from nothing, to interact with customers, to keep a business alive through the decisions you made every day.
That observation embedded in her a framework she has returned to repeatedly: the fundamentals of business are not abstract, and they can be learned before anyone hands you a credential.
She worked at McDonald's as a teenager and has said she took it seriously — studying how the operation worked, how customer interaction drove the experience, how systems either supported or undercut the people running them.
She got her BBA in Logistics and Procurement from Alabama A&M University, then her MBA from the same institution. She studied marketing management at Dartmouth's Tuck School. She was methodical about her preparation.
Then she went to work for NASA.
For four years at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Jones was a logistics and supply chain expert — managing the movement of materials and information inside one of the most complex operational environments in the federal government.
She has said that the experience directly shaped her eventual product idea: she watched large organizations communicate internally through email, saw how flat and unengaging that communication was, and began thinking about what it would mean to make it more dynamic.
When the program ended and she was laid off, she made a decision that changed everything: she moved to Atlanta.
Jones built her post-NASA career in Atlanta around supplier diversity — the corporate practice of ensuring that companies' procurement spending includes minority- and women-owned businesses.
She worked in the field at AT&T and became a recognized thought leader, speaking at forums and panels, understanding from the inside how large corporations decided which vendors to engage and why.
That expertise would prove essential later.
The decision to actually found a company was not triggered by a business opportunity.
It was triggered by her mother's death.
Her mother died unexpectedly at 61. Jones has cited that loss directly as the moment that forced her to ask what she actually wanted to build before her own time ran out. The question was not abstract. She had already been thinking about the video-in-email problem for years.
The grief made the delay intolerable.
She founded EyeMail Inc. in Atlanta in 2004. She filed her first patent on the core technology the same year.
Then, because she still had a full-time job, she spent the next five years developing the product simultaneously — nights, weekends, and any available margin — while continuing to work as a corporate executive.
She could not find U.S. development agencies willing to build what she was describing. Most either didn't understand the technical problem or didn't believe it could be solved at the compression ratios she needed.
She went international: engineering in India and Pakistan, video compression infrastructure in Hong Kong and the Philippines.
She built the team that could actually execute the vision before she had a single paying client.
Jones needed a way to prove the product worked in the real world before she could charge anyone for it.
Her opening came through the Greater Women's Business Council of Georgia, a business development organization with a corporate-heavy board. She went to the president and offered to build a campaign for free.
The campaign featured the president's face and voice, embedded directly in an email, playing automatically on open.
It went out to all 700 council members and their boards.
Two days later, the GWBC president called her. Time Warner had been on the board. They wanted to know what the technology was and how to access it. Time Warner became EyeMail's first paying client.
The proof-of-concept model — offer the product free to a credible organization with a high-visibility audience, demonstrate the engagement metrics, and let the results generate inbound interest — became the template for how EyeMail grew.
The product increased email open rates by more than 60% and click-through rates by 5-8x over standard email campaigns.
Those numbers gave Jones something she could take into any corporate procurement conversation: evidence that the product worked.
In 2008, EyeMail entered into a partnership with The Coca-Cola Company through the Georgia Minority Supplier Diversity Council's mentor program.
Jones has described the Coca-Cola relationship as pivotal — it gave the product visibility among major corporate buyers, helped her develop business skills, and reportedly caused EyeMail's revenue to quadruple.
The Microsoft relationship followed a different path.
Shortly after launching EyeMail, Jones attended a Microsoft conference on women in technology and began building the institutional connection that would become the foundation of the company's technical roadmap.
She was invited to participate in Microsoft's Mentor/Protégé Innovation Lab Program, becoming the first African American woman to do so.
The program gave EyeMail access to senior architects at the Microsoft Technology Center — a collaboration that allowed the company to develop its technical infrastructure against the standards of one of the world's largest technology companies.
When Microsoft announced its Racial Equity Initiative in 2020 and committed to doubling the number of Black suppliers in its vendor base, a procurement engagement manager remembered Jones and reached out.
EyeMail was integrated into the Windows 11 launch in 2021 as part of Microsoft's marketing communications. Jones has described the moment of receiving that contract:
"I started crying when I got my first contract with Microsoft, because I was full of gratitude. Everyone told me, 'You're a woman, you're a Black woman, you're from Alabama, you don't have the right network, you're not a coder' — I could go on and on. But I said, 'I am going to make it.'"
The Microsoft contract changed the company's trajectory.
With a Microsoft supplier number came institutional credibility — and that credibility opened doors to the Fortune 500 clients that now make up EyeMail's roster.
EyeMail's core product solves a technical problem that had resisted solution for years: how to get a high-definition video to play automatically inside an email without a link, without a browser redirect, and without an attachment large enough to be blocked by corporate email filters.
The company's patent-pending technology compresses high-quality 4K video files to as little as 15 kilobytes — small enough to travel through any email system — while maintaining HD playback quality.
When the recipient opens the email, the video plays automatically in the body of the message.
No click required.
No browser launched.
The video is the email.
The addition of a closed captioning feature, developed in collaboration with Microsoft's senior architects, extended the technology's accessibility reach — delivering the video content with synchronized captions to accommodate the more than 430 million people globally affected by hearing loss.
The SaaS platform Jones has been developing — the Storytelling Platform including EyeCon, EyeViewer Assistant (EVA), and Video in Text — represents the next phase: moving from custom managed campaigns for enterprise clients toward a scalable self-service model that allows organizations of any size to deploy video-in-email marketing independently.
Between 2021 and 2023, EyeMail grew 71%. Microsoft documented this growth directly in its 2023 customer story, noting that the company now delivers managed services projects 40% faster following its full adoption of Microsoft 365.
That operational efficiency — one IT person managing the entire Microsoft 365 environment, spending only 40% of their time on it — reflects what Jones has built: a company whose technology overhead is lean enough that most internal capacity goes toward building the product rather than maintaining the infrastructure.
In 2023, EyeMail entered Inc. magazine's Southeast regional list of fastest-growing companies at No. 181. In November of the same year, Jones won the TAG Invest Connect pitch competition — the Technology Association of Georgia's competition connecting Black-owned businesses with investors — bringing her company into a new phase of capitalization after nearly two decades of self-funded growth.
The story of EyeMail is not a story about technology.
It is a story about persistence — the specific kind that shows up at NASA after getting passed over, moves to Atlanta after being laid off, spends five years building a product while holding a full-time job, gets turned down by every U.S. developer, builds the team in four countries instead, and then offers the product for free to the right room until Time Warner calls.
Lisa S. Jones identified a gap in how the world's largest companies communicate, built the technical solution with no institutional support, and spent two decades proving it worked — one client, one contract, one rejected pitch at a time.
The following sources were used directly in the reporting of this profile. All factual claims are drawn from these documents.
Wikipedia — Lisa S. Jones Primary biographical reference; birth, education, NASA career, AT&T supplier diversity work, EyeMail founding, client roster, awards, board memberships, patent filing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_S._Jones
Microsoft Customer Stories — EyeMail brings innovation to email marketing, grows 71 percent in two years with Microsoft 365 (June 7, 2023) 71% growth figure confirmed; 40% faster managed services delivery confirmed; Microsoft Mentor/Protégé Innovation Lab origin story confirmed; Jones quotes sourced directly; Microsoft 365 Business Premium adoption and IT efficiency confirmed; Windows 11 launch involvement confirmed https://customers.microsoft.com/en-us/story/1645046618770391393-eyemail-inc-partner-professional-services-m365
Hypepotamus — How This Founder Got Execs At Delta, Coca-Cola and More to Notice Her Email Marketing Product (May 9, 2018) GWBC free campaign origin story confirmed; Time Warner first client confirmed; international development team confirmed (India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Philippines); 60%+ open rate improvement and 5-8x click-through rate verified; Delta Catalyst of the Year confirmed; Billion Dollar Roundtable speaker confirmed; self-funded status confirmed; SaaS platform development direction confirmed https://hypepotamus.com/companies/eyemail/
Microsoft News — How Black-owned companies are using corporate connections to give back (June 20, 2023) "I started crying when I got my first contract with Microsoft" quote sourced directly; Microsoft Racial Equity Initiative 2020 confirmed; Windows 11 launch partnership confirmed; first African American woman in Microsoft Mentor/Protégé Innovation Lab confirmed https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/diversity-inclusion/how-black-owned-companies-are-using-corporate-connections-to-give-back/
Atlanta Business Chronicle — Corporate partnership helps email tech company quadruple its revenue (September 16, 2014) Coca-Cola mentor program through GMSDC confirmed; revenue quadrupling from Coca-Cola relationship confirmed; product visibility and business skill development confirmed https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2021/09/16/minority-business-opportunity-week-coke.html
Delta News Hub — Diverse suppliers honored at 19th annual Star Awards (March 1, 2018) Delta Air Lines Catalyst of the Year award at Star Awards confirmed https://news.delta.com/diverse-suppliers-honored-19th-annual-star-awards
Inc. Magazine Southeast Regional List 2023 No. 181 ranking on Inc. Southeast fastest-growing companies list confirmed https://www.inc.com/regionals/southeast
Today's Builders is a series by The Black Executive Journal profiling the founders, operators, investors, and executives shaping Black and African business right now — the dealmakers closing rounds, the operators building institutions, the strategists entering new markets and constructing lasting economic infrastructure across the diaspora economy in real time.
