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Kirby Jones

Kirby Jones has traveled regularly to Cuba for the last 35 years, has consulted with dozens of U.S. firms and organizations, has conducted several television and print interviews with  Fidel Castro, and has written extensively about Cuba.

Described by Newsweek as having “better contacts in Cuba than any other American,” and by The New York Times as the “man to see about business in Cuba,” Jones is the President of Alamar, a Maryland-based consulting firm which provides a full range of consulting services to companies and organizations interested in establishing relationships with, and conducting business in, Cuba.

Jones has assisted several clients in negotiating the first sale of U.S. products to Cuba in 40 years. The first such client reached an agreement in December, 2001, and others have signed agreements over the last few years. He has participated in negotiations involving chicken, fresh produce, organic fertilizers, chewing gum, shipping, fruit juices, supermarket products, and lumber.

Jones has served as consultant to several official state delegation visits to Cuba in the last few years including California, New York, Delaware, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Georgia.

He is the founder and president of the US-Cuba Trade Association (www.uscuba.org), a membership organization of 55 companies from 30 different states which work for normal commercial relations with Cuba. He also serves on the Board of the Center for Cuban Studies in New York and on the editorial board of Cuba Trade and Investment News.

Kirby Jones first traveled to Cuba in 1974 as a special correspondent for CBS. He participated in an interview with Fidel Castro, which was broadcast in October 1974, as “CBS Reports: Castro, Cuba and the U.S.A.” For his work on this project, Mr. Jones was awarded the “Citation of Excellence for Best Interpretation of Foreign Affairs” by the Overseas Press Club.

Again in 1986, Mr. Jones interviewed Castro as a PBS special correspondent for the documentary narrated by Raul Julia titled “In the Shadow of Doubt”, which aired nationally later that same year. Part of that interview was also published in Playboy Magazine in 1986.

Mr. Jones is co-author of the book, With Fidel: A Portrait of Castro and Cuba, published by Playboy Press in 1975 and Ballantine Books in 1976; he also co-authored “Havana, 1974: Around Town with Fidel” published in 1997 in The Readers Companion to Cuba, Harcourt Brace and Co.

Mr. Jones is contributing author to the book titled Subject to Solution: Problems in Cuban-U.S. Relations published by Lynne Rienner Publishers in September 1988, and he wrote the benchmark 1988 study on the “Opportunities for U.S.-Cuban Trade”, which was commissioned by School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University.

Mr. Jones was invited to present testimony on Cuba trade before the hearings conducted by the International Trade Commission in 2002 and again in 2007; has testified before the U.S. Congress; has appeared on the TODAY Show, ABC Close-up, CNN’s Situation Room, PBS, CBS Evening News, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, Bloomberg TV, ABC World News Tonight to discuss Cuba; and was one of eight participants in the “Firing Line” debate on Cuba broadcast nationally on PBS in August, 1998.

Jones was the organizer, sponsor, and speaker at the 2006 “US-Cuba Energy Summit” held in Mexico City in 2006, and the 2002 and 2003 “U.S.-Cuba Business Conferences” held in Cancun and Havana. From 1998-2001,  Jones founded and chaired the series of five U.S.-Cuba Business Summits which  brought over 250 U.S. executives face to face with Cuban officials and potential business partners; and was also chairman of the Euromoney ’92-93 International Conference series on Cuba held in London, Cancun, and Havana.