Mark Jones joined the State Theatre Regional Arts Center as President & CEO in January 2011, and was charged with building programs for the future --both by developing new programs and expanding current offerings. Prior to coming to New Brunswick, he was the CEO of Paper Mill Playhouse and is widely credited for saving this historic theater. Jones began his career in the arts in 1973 as the Company Manager of the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia. He moved to New York City in 1977 to become the Director of Development and Assistant to the President at American Ballet Theatre. From there he moved on to the New York State Council on the Arts.

After a brief stint at the State Council, he began his own consulting firm and counted among his clients The Cleveland Ballet (which he co-founded); Kenyon Festival Theatre; the Court Theatre at the University of Chicago; the National Endowment for the Arts and Syracuse Research Corporation; the American Council on the Arts (for whom he did a plan for a new performing arts center in Annapolis, MD with theatre Architect Hugh Hardy); and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

From 1980 to 1989 he was Associate Producing Director of Music-Theatre, a small, off Broadway theatre company, where he co-produced 52 new works, many of which won prestigious awards including 11 Obies, 2 Drama Desk Awards, an Olivier, the Richard Rodgers Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Tony nomination for best musical.

In 1989, he was named Director of Planning and Development Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, NY, where he greatly expanded funding raising and planning operations, eliminated a $3 deficit, planned and implemented a successful $5 million Capital Campaign. This was followed by positions as Executive Director at the Jose Limon Dance Foundation, and Shakespeare & Company, a 30-year-old classical theatre company and school based in Lenox, MA.

He attended Rider University and for additional study, he attended the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and studied privately with faculty members at Westminster Choir College and the Juilliard School. He has served on many Boards and has been a panelist for funding agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He is the author of Dancers Resource, published in 1999, and has contributed to numerous publications.