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Home > About MJLM > Leadership Team
Leadership Team
Ira Wayne McConnell | Thomas Jones, Jr. | Odysseus M. Lanier | Sharon Murphy
Ira Wayne McConnell
Ira Wayne McConnell is the Managing Partner for McConnell & Jones LLP, and our affiliate McConnell Jones Lanier & Murphy LLP, the largest African-American owned accounting and consulting firm in the State of Texas. The firm offers a wide range of business advisory and consulting services. These services are provided to federal, state and local governmental agencies, employee benefit plans, school districts, non-profit organizations, construction and real estate companies, money management firms, petrochemical trading companies, high net worth individuals and private sector companies. In addition to his role as managing partner, he functions as a partner in the assurance practice of
McConnell & Jones LLP.
Wayne holds an MBA from Louisiana Tech University and earned his undergraduate degree from Grambling State University. He began his professional career with the international accounting firm of Price Waterhouse, now known as PricewaterhouseCoopers. He became the Manager of Acquisitions for Damson Oil Corporation, an aggressive acquisition-minded oil and gas company. While at Damson, two of his friends from Price Waterhouse invited him to join their local accounting firm in mid-1984. The experience gained at this local firm provided valuable insight now used in managing the current practice. However, with the downturn in the oil and gas and real estate industries in Houston in the late 1980s, the local firm merged with Touche Ross. Given his desire not to return to the large firm environment, Wayne started his own firm, McConnell & Company, in July of 1987. One partner, Thomas Jones, was added in January 1996 to form McConnell & Jones LLP. In March of 1999, McConnell & Jones LLP merged with the consulting firm of Empirical Management Services to form the existing practice, McConnell Jones Lanier & Murphy LLP.
Wayne also contributes his time to the community. He currently serves as Chairman of the Audit Committee of the American Heart Association at the national level, is Chairman of the Houston Division, and is Chair-Elect of the Board of Directors of the South Central Affiliate of the American Heart Association. He is on the Board of Directors of the Houston Museum of African American Culture, where he is also Chairman of the Finance Committee, and is on the Board of Directors of Grambling State University’s Black & Gold Foundation.
Wayne's previous committee and board service includes the Board of Directors and Executive Committees of the Greater Houston Partnership, the Board of Directors and Executive and Finance Committees of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, where he was also the Treasurer, the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, the Board of Trustees and Finance Committee of the Carl G. Jung Educational Center, the Finance Committee of the United Way of Texas Gulf Coast, and board member for Project Row Houses, United Negro College Fund and Sheltering Arms Senior Services.
His professional affiliations include membership in the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the Houston Chapter of Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants. Wayne is also a member of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Alumni Advisory Council and is currently licensed to practice in the states of Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, New Jersey and Illinois. Wayne and his wife Judy have two daughters and one grandson.
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Thomas Jones, Jr.
Thomas Jones, Jr., serves as partner and heads the firm's tax and financial planning division. He has more than 28 years of experience in investment and financial management. Thomas is responsible for providing the firm's clientele with access to a complete range of confidential financial services including tax planning, retirement and estate planning services.
Thomas began his professional career with the international accounting firm of Ernst & Ernst (now Ernst & Young). After spending time in both the audit and tax departments, he left the firm to join Uncle Ben's, Inc., as assistant treasurer and tax manager. There he managed the company's treasury operation and oversaw the implementation of a comprehensive, state-of-the-art cash management system.
Thomas' treasury and cash management experiences led him to Texas Commerce Bank, which is now J. P. Morgan Chase Bank, as a vice president and division manager. As part of the treasury services group, he managed a sales force responsible for marketing the bank's cash management services to large corporations throughout the United States and Mexico. He later served as a vice president in the bank's trust department where he marketed the bank's trust and investment management services to high net worth individuals.
Thomas is a founding board member of Royal Oaks Bank, a full service bank with assets totaling more than $140 million. He also chairs the bank's audit committee and is a member of the senior loan committee. Thomas' civic involvement includes serving as vice chairman and treasurer of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, and vice president of Dominion Community Development Corporation, a faith-based entity, which focuses on providing housing for low and moderate income families. Thomas is a senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum and is a graduate of Leadership Houston.
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Odysseus M. Lanier
Odysseus M. Lanier serves as partner within MJLM’s consulting division and heads the firm’s Federal Services group. With more than 30 years of experience, he specializes in working with federal agencies, school districts and municipalities, as well as local and state government agencies, by providing strategic planning and management, business process improvement, operations review, and management support services.
As a consulting partner, he has extensive knowledge of integrating people, process, and technology to improve organizational performance and mitigate risks. Lanier also has 15 years experience developing and implementing procurement strategies, including strategic outsourcing/co-sourcing. He is currently the lead partner responsible for MJLM’s business unit in Huntsville, Alabama that provides engineering, logistics, and technical support services to the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.
He serves as chairman of the steering committee to develop governance, membership, communication, funding, and research for the National Alliance of African American Prostate Cancer Advocates. He is the former chairperson on the Board of Commissioners for the Harris County Housing Authority and a former member on the Board of Regents for Texas Southern University, where he served as chairperson of the finance committee.
Lanier is a certified public accountant and a graduate of Alabama A&M University where he received a B.S. in accounting.
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Sharon E. Murphy
Sharon E. Murphy is a partner within MJLM's consulting division and heads the firm’s education practice. She has more than 25 years of experience in financial management, business and strategic planning, organizational assessment, policy analysis, and program evaluation. As a consulting partner, she is responsible for a national clientele that includes school districts, institutions of higher education, government, and private sector companies.
In the education arena, Sharon has directed or participated in over 40 K-12 public school district consulting engagements in 13 states. Twelve of these engagements have been for “top 100” school districts, in terms of enrollment. During a turnaround project for St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS), which was facing a $90 million budget deficit, Sharon completed a major school building consolidation program where she developed and implemented a plan to close 16 schools in just two and one-half months. As engagement partner for MJLM’s portion of the SLPS project, she also managed the outsourcing implementation effort for warehouse services, facility management services, transportation routing and scheduling, and food services which resulted in more efficient and cost-effective operations. Overall, MJLM’s part of the turnaround project saved the district approximately $33.5 million in one school year.
Over the past three and one-half years, Sharon has functioned as the project principal for the U.S. Department of Labor – National Career Technical Training Support Contract. Major responsibilities involved developing and implementing a system-wide initiative to upgrade all of Job Corps’ career technical training programs by aligning them with nationally recognized, industry based occupational skill standards and certification requirements.
In the areas of financial and operations management, Sharon has also had oversight responsibility for internal/compliance audits for an array of nonprofit organizations, municipalities, and governmental agencies including manufacturing and research operating entities for the U.S. Department of Energy (Y12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Los Alamos Laboratories in Los Alamos, New Mexico).
Sharon's civic involvement includes serving on the Board of Directors for Aspiring Youth of Houston, a non-profit organization that provides after-school programs for disadvantaged middle school-aged youth and on the Board of Directors of The Ensemble Theatre.
Sharon was honored as a “Woman of Distinction” by the Houston Chapter of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation and Houston's ABC affiliate, KTRK Channel 13. She was also the recipient of the Building Block Award, given by Child Builders, Houston's advocates for mental health in children. Sharon is a graduate of Clark Atlanta University where she earned a M.B.A. degree in Finance and Indiana University where she earned a B.A. degree in Communications.
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