Tony Jeff

Tony is Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of the Mississippi Technology Alliance, a non-profit organization whose mission is to drive innovation and technology-based economic development for the state of Mississippi.  Tony has been at the Mississippi Technology Alliance since 2002 and has staffed the Tupelo office of MTA part-time since it opened in early 2007.

Tony has a breadth of experiences leading teams in Finance, Sales, Engineering, and Operations. While working at Florida Power & Light, General Motors, and Delphi Automotive Systems, Tony successfully led a variety of cross-disciplinary teams in implementing solutions to improve productivity and customer responsiveness. Tony was the Finance Manager for a $3.9 billion business-line at Delphi Packard Electric Systems where he led a team of analysts in the U.S. and Mexico who were responsible for financial modeling, appropriations, and cost estimating for future business of that business line.

In a previous assignment Tony negotiated automotive supply contracts valued over $1 billion and developed market analysis tools to model the competitive landscape. He also led improved product quality by designing experiments and implementing appropriate corrective action as a Reliability Engineer for General Motors, as well as, successfully led a manufacturing plant to its first ISO 9000 certification.

At MTA, Tony was previously the Director of the Mississippi Alternative Energy Enterprise, the Director of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Mississippi (MEP.ms), and acting President of MTA while a nationwide search was conducted by the MTA Board from January to September, 2006.

In addition to his corporate experience, Tony has started two businesses - one around a patent he co-invented and successfully brought to market. He was also a student of Japanese Language and a member of the Foreign Teaching Staff of AEON Corporation in Tokyo, Japan. Tony earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Mississippi State University. He received an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, and a Masters of Engineering from the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University through the Masters of Management and Manufacturing (MMM) Program. Tony is married to the former Sheila Kalka of Magee, Mississippi – a family medicine physician.  They live in Madison, Mississippi.