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Meet Whitney Johnson
Founder and Managing Director of the Springboard Fund, Whitney Johnson is a top investor and leading thinker on driving innovation through personal disruption. As cofounder at startup investment advisor Rose Park Advisors, she co-led an in-the-trenches venture that applied frameworks of disruptive innovation to investing. She provides strategic and tactical advice to CEOs of early stage start-ups—advising how to influence opinion, build a movement and connect to the right people.
Ms. Johnson’s unique professional journey is a testimony to the principles and advice she shares as a speaker, blogger, and author. A music major with no business connections she moved to New York City after graduation and got a job on Wall Street as a secretary, working 80 hours per week and studying business at night. Her exceptional focus and discernment for momentum launched her career as an investment banker and researcher for Salomon Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch in which she made several business connections to many of Latin America’s billionaires due to her understanding of Spanish and the Latino culture, having served in Uruguay as a missionary for 18 months.
Ms. Johnson was an Institutional Investor-ranked analyst for eight consecutive years, and was rated by Starmine as a superior stock-picker. Despite her success and admirable reputation in the financial sector, she decided to “disrupt herself,” leaving her job to produce a TV show and write a children’s book; however instead she ended up blogging about life work issues and co-founding a hedge fund backed by a man she’d met at her church. Today that hedge fund Rose Park Advisors is valued at $2.2 billion.
As a speaker, writer, and consultant, Ms. Johnson is appreciated for her gentle honesty and ability to inspire people to make great things happen. She has spoken to audiences of over 25,000 people and is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review. She has received wide spread recognition for her ideas which have been covered in The Atlantic, BBC, CNN, Fast Company, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal and more.
Ms. Johnson’s unique professional journey is a testimony to the principles and advice she shares as a speaker, blogger, and author. A music major with no business connections she moved to New York City after graduation and got a job on Wall Street as a secretary, working 80 hours per week and studying business at night. Her exceptional focus and discernment for momentum launched her career as an investment banker and researcher for Salomon Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch in which she made several business connections to many of Latin America’s billionaires due to her understanding of Spanish and the Latino culture, having served in Uruguay as a missionary for 18 months.
Ms. Johnson was an Institutional Investor-ranked analyst for eight consecutive years, and was rated by Starmine as a superior stock-picker. Despite her success and admirable reputation in the financial sector, she decided to “disrupt herself,” leaving her job to produce a TV show and write a children’s book; however instead she ended up blogging about life work issues and co-founding a hedge fund backed by a man she’d met at her church. Today that hedge fund Rose Park Advisors is valued at $2.2 billion.
As a speaker, writer, and consultant, Ms. Johnson is appreciated for her gentle honesty and ability to inspire people to make great things happen. She has spoken to audiences of over 25,000 people and is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review. She has received wide spread recognition for her ideas which have been covered in The Atlantic, BBC, CNN, Fast Company, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal and more.
Suggested Speaking Topic
Disrupt Yourself™: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work
Disruptive companies and ideas upend markets by seeing a need or an empty space waiting to be filled, and daring to create something for which a market may not yet exist. In this talk, Johnson shares how the theory of disruptive innovation impacts publicly traded stocks and private early-stage companies, and how the frameworks of disruptive innovation can apply. This presentation is ideal for high-potential people charting a new career trajectory, a leader trying to jumpstart innovative thinking, or a self-starter ready to make a disruptive pivot in their business. Johnson says that to be successful in unexpected ways, attendees need to follow their own disruptive path, dare to innovate, do something astonishing and “disrupt yourself™.”
Disruptive companies and ideas upend markets by seeing a need or an empty space waiting to be filled, and daring to create something for which a market may not yet exist. In this talk, Johnson shares how the theory of disruptive innovation impacts publicly traded stocks and private early-stage companies, and how the frameworks of disruptive innovation can apply. This presentation is ideal for high-potential people charting a new career trajectory, a leader trying to jumpstart innovative thinking, or a self-starter ready to make a disruptive pivot in their business. Johnson says that to be successful in unexpected ways, attendees need to follow their own disruptive path, dare to innovate, do something astonishing and “disrupt yourself™.”
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