More Info
About Lynn DeVaultAge: 66Title: President of Jones Management Services, Inc., in ClevelandEducation: Bachelor’s degree in math from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, master’s degree in math and statistics from Emory University in Atlanta.Career: DeVault spent 17 years working at SunTrust Bank in Atlanta, then four years running an investment firm for Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton in northwest Arkansas. DeVault has been with Jones Management since the late 1990s.Civic, business groups: DeVault is a past chairwoman of the Cleveland Airport Authority and current member of the authority’s board of directors. Personal: DeVault is the oldest of five siblings, has never been married and has no children.
Lynn DeVault likes to golf, and read — she doesn’t watch movies or TV — and at 66, doesn’t really imagine retiring. She’s the president of Jones Management Services, which oversees and operates the many businesses owned by Cleveland millionaire and Check Into Cash founder Allan Jones.
DeVault is one of the highest-ranking women in leadership in the Chattanooga area. She’s fierce and confident, a corporate climber in an era when few women rose to top corporate jobs. She was one of the highest-ranking women at SunTrust Bank in Atlanta before leaving in the mid-1990s to work for Alice Walton, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, managing an investment firm owned by the heiress in northwest Arkansas.
A native of Bristol, Tennessee, DeVault returned to Tennessee at the end of the 1990s to work for Jones in Cleveland. In the years since, she has successfully spearheaded construction of the new Cleveland airport, and has made a habit of fighting government regulators in Washington, D.C., over the payday lending industry.
DeVault is a workhorse, a grinder, a good listener and a leader, according to her peers. Though DeVault says the most important name on her business card isn’t her own, she has built a reputation and legacy of her own since coming to Cleveland.