September 6, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
Background: A lawyer and former Time Warner executive, Mr. Johnson, 50, will continue to serve as chief executive of Integrated Urban Holdings, a real-estate company he started, while he leads Yéle Haiti, the antipoverty group in New York started by the Haitian musician Wyclef Jean. Mr. Jean quit his role with the organization when he announced he was running to be president of Haiti.
Previous jobs: Mr. Johnson has served as chief executive of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone and of the Apollo Theater Foundation, in New York.
Education: Graduated from Columbia College, in New York, with a bachelor’s degree in political science, and from the Columbia University School of Law.
His agenda: Mr. Johnson joins Yéle as it struggles to overcome questions about its financial management and whether it can effectively spend the $10.5-million it raised after the Haiti earthquake early this year. The new leader says he cannot comment on whether money was misused in the past but says the organization needs to be more transparent and careful about its spending.
First steps he plans: Expand the board, hire a financial manager, improve the charity’s ability to communicate about its work, and examine whether it should cut programs to focus on the strongest ones.
Salary: He will be paid $1 a year. “It’s hard not to come back from Haiti with a completely altered perspective about human suffering, human need, and the role of compensation and wealth,” he says.
What he’s reading: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett; and Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.
