John Hope Bryant

Founding Curator and Alumni, Atlanta Hub, Operation HOPE

Referred to as the Conscience of Capitalism by CEOs of Delta Air Lines, Walmart, and First Republic Bank, John Hope Bryant is an American entrepreneur, author, philanthropist, and prominent thought leader on financial inclusion, economic empowerment and financial dignity. Mr. Bryant is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Operation HOPE, Inc. the largest nonprofit, best-in-class provider of financial literacy, and economic empowerment services in the United States for youth and adults. He is also the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Bryant Group Ventures, and Founder and Principal of The Promise Homes Company, which is the largest minority-controlled owner of single-family rental homes in the United States.

John Hope Bryant has received hundreds of awards and citations for his work, including Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life Award, and the John Sherman Award for Excellence in Financial Education from the U.S. Treasury. He is a founding member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and a contributor to Huffington Post, THRIVE Global and Black Enterprise. Bryant has been named as Georgia Trend’s “100 Most Influential Georgians in 2023”. In 2021, he was awarded U.S. Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Advocate of the Year. In 2020, he was named one of “LinkedIn’s Top Voices: U.S. Influencers.” Bryant was also named as the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “The Power 100: Most Influential Atlantans in 2020”, American Banker magazine's 2016 “Innovator of the Year”, and one of Time magazine’s “50 Leaders for the Future”. He is also a co-founder of Global Dignity, and a member of the World Economic Forum, and OECD Expert Networks.

Five former U.S. presidents have recognized his work, and he has served as an advisor to three sitting U.S. presidents from both political parties. He is responsible for financial literacy becoming the policy of the U.S. federal government. In January 2016, Bryant became the only private American citizen to inspire the renaming of a building on the White House campus, when the U.S. Treasury Annex Building was renamed the Freedman’s Bank Building. The legacy of the Freedman’s Bank, founded by President Abraham Lincoln, has become the narrative of the work of Operation HOPE—to help all people in the ‘Invisible Class’ become fully integrated into our nation’s economy. John Hope Bryant is the author of bestselling books Up From Nothing: The Untold Story of How we (All) Succeed; The Memo: Five Rules for Your Economic Liberation; How the Poor Can Save Capitalism: Rebuilding the Path to the Middle Class, and LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World. He is one of the only bestselling authors on economics and business leadership in the world today who happens to also be African-American.

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