About the Author
George Ellis Johnson is the founder of the Johnson Products Company, the maker of
Ultra Sheen and
Afro Sheen, the first Black-owned company to trade on a major stock exchange, the financial sponsor of
Soul Train, and once likely the largest Black-owned manufacturing company in the world. Known for his generosity around Chicago and nationally, Johnson has received numerous honors for the philanthropic contributions of the George E. Johnson Foundation and the George E. Johnson Educational Fund, which awarded more than 1000 college scholarships. In 1964, he co-founded Independence Bank, the first Black-owned financial institution to operate in Chicago in more than 30 years after the Great Depression, and became its chairman. He served on the boards of the Chicago Urban League, Commonwealth Edison, Lyric Opera of Chicago, MetLife, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University, and Operation PUSH. The recipient of nine honorary doctorate degrees, including several from HBCUs, Johnson received the Harvard Medal, Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Marketing Man of the Year recognition, and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1999, the
Wall Street Journal included him in its Special Report “10 Who Made a Difference: The minds that transformed entrepreneurship in the 20th century.”
Hilary Beard has been a book collaboration specialist helping leaders, visionaries, creatives and gamechangers amplify their voice to empower humanity, for more than 20 years. The author of 20 books and published by each of the Big Five publishers, Hilary’s clients have included Venus and Serena Williams, Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance, NASA’s Katherine Johnson, and Johnson Products’ George E. Johnson. She will also consult creatively on a Hollywood A-list actor’s rendition of Mr. Johnson’s story. Well versed in African American health, life, history and culture, Hilary has won two NAACP Image Awards—for Health First: The Black Woman’s Wellness Guide and Promises Kept: Raising Black Boys to Succeed in School and in Life. Her award-winning young adult books include The Burning: Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson, and We’re in This Together by political organizer Linda Sarsour. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Hilary graduated from Princeton University and lives in Philadelphia.
