John Hope Bryant

The Greatest Compliment for a Leader: Compliments from Another Leader

This gives me an opportunity to brag about a man making a difference in this world; his own mark, from community to corporate, and back to community again. But the last move back to support community was completely by choice.  The man is Brian Tippens, an executive with HP, one of the world's leading companies.  

Brian happens to be Black, or African-American, but he is certainly not "Black for a living." Brian Tippens is a strong leader and a responsible corporate executive who also happens to "be Black."

I have known Brian for some time, but didn't really know him well until I saw what he did for others.  About this time last year I was asked by one of my offices if I could make a trip out to the Bay Area to say 'thank you' to HP corporation, which had donated computers for our HOPE Inner-City Cyber Cafe in our Oakland HOPE Center, in turn supported by Center signature partner Bank of the West.  

The interesting thing is, this was as much a leadership commitment of one Brian Tippens, as it was a corporate philanthropic commitment from and by HP.  We and I thanked both.  The commitment said a great deal about both also.

And so now you will know what I mean, when I say that I was deeply touched and honored to have Brian Tippens note me as his "Most Influential Leader" at a recent leadership development conference.

An admiration that goes both ways.

 

"Like most corporate execs I have the opportunity to attend leadership development summits from time to time. For this week's training we were asked to identify our "most influencial leader". — with John Hope Bryant."

 

John Hope Bryant is a thought leader, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and Bryant Group Companies, Inc. Magazine/CEO READ bestselling business author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass), the only African-American bestselling business author in America, and is chairman of the Subcommittee for the Under-Served and Community Empowerment for the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, for President Barack Obama.  Mr. Bryant is the co-founder of the Gallup-HOPE Index, the only national research poll on youth financial dignity and youth economic energy in the U.S. He is also a co-founder of Global Dignity with HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Professor Pekka Himanen of Finland. Global Dignity is affiliated with the Forum of Young Global Leaders and the World Economic Forum.  Mr. Bryant is a thought leader represented by the Bright Sight Group for public speaking. Mr. Bryant serves on the board of directors of Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation (NYSE: ACRE), a specialty finance company that is managed by an affiliate of Ares Management LLC, a global alternative asset manager with approximately $59 billion in committed capital under management as of December 31, 2012. 

 

 

 

 

Operation HOPE and HUD Counseling: Mortgage HOPE Crisis Hotline Results

Lance Triggs, who is president of HOPE Financial Dignity Centers nationally, and CEO of Operation HOPE, Los Angeles, reports in on the following results around our Mortgage HOPE Crisis Hotline work, which involves our national HUD approved counselors and financial dignity counseling programs.

Below is a highlight summary:

 2008 - 2012  RESULTS

• OVER 166,000 incoming calls.
• OVER $560 million in loans modified or restructured.
• Educated and assisted over 26,000 people on foreclosure prevention.
• Assigned 8,000 of those individuals to a counselor for further assistance Average loan amount per loan modification was $341,463.

MORTGAGE CRISIS HOTLINE CLIENT SURVEY 

507 survey responses after receiving a loan modification:

• 80.4% are still current with their mortgage.
• Only 9% are currently late (1-6 months) with their mortgage. 
• 3% sold their home.
• 93% have not defaulted on their loan.

I am very proud of my Operation HOPE team led by Lance Triggs.

A special thank you to lead sponsors and partners that have underwritten major components of Lance Triggs' division, including E Trade Financial, Bank of the West, Union Bank, CoreLogic, JP Morgan Chase and so many others.

 

 

A Personal Letter from Operation HOPE Founder, Chairman, and CEO John Hope Bryant and Ambassador Andrew Young

Operation HOPE is "the private banker to the working poor, the underclass, and the struggling middle-class," and the impact of our work can be felt on-the-ground, everywhere we operate.  Our mission is 'silver rights,' or making free enterprise and capitalism work for all.  Financial literacy is the tool, financial dignity is the goal and financial inclusion is the way. 

2012 marked new heights for HOPE's silver rights movement as it continued to reach out and empower underserved populations in new and innovative ways. HOPE divisions currently serving the community include:

 

• Banking on Our Future, focused on keeping the most at-risk youth from repeating the cycles of poverty and despair that has trapped so many in their families and communities by teaching them basic financial literacy, or what we call "the global language of money." 

 

• HOPE Business-In-A-Box/Gallup-HOPE Index, focused on inspiring a generation of young people to become future American assets of economic energy, small business and entrepreneurship.

 

• HOPE Financial Dignity Centers, including our newest HOPE Financial Dignity Center at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr''s Ebenezer Church in Atlanta, Georgia, are where we approve clients day one, subject to the resolution of their primary denial factors, and raise credit scores on average 120 points over 18 months of active counseling. We call it the 700 Credit Scores Communities Initiative.  The HOPE Center at Ebenezer marks our 11th HOPE Center across the nation, and is the proud anchor for the new Martin Luther King. Sr. Community Resource Complex next to Ebenezer Church.  Most people know that Daddy King, as he was lovingly called, co-pastored Ebenezer Church with his son, Dr. King, but what they don't know is that Daddy King served on the board of a bank for 40 years.  Even more than 50 years ago, the King legacy was alive with civil rights, and silver rights empowerment, too. A special thank you to our HOPE Center signature partners, including Bank of the West and Union Bank on the west coast, E*TRADE FINANCIAL in New York City and Washington, DC, and at Ebenezer in Atlanta, FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE members SunTrust Bank, State Farm Insurance, LPL Financial/NestWise, Wells Fargo Bank,MasterCard, and BMO Harris Bank, along with supporting partners including the Coca-Cola Company,Kaplan University, Equifax, the United Way of Greater Atlanta, amongst others.

 

• HOPE Coalition America, which is the national partner with FEMA around emergency financial disaster preparedness, response and recovery, or the "economic Red Cross" for the nation.  HCA responded to, and served, more than 200,000 survivors following Hurricane Katrina, and we are responding to Hurricane Sandy now. 

 

• HOPE Government Relations & Public Policy, and HOPE Forums, which both advance responsible public policy and help to shape, engaged public opinion.  The recent HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summitfeaturing U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, with more than 1,500 delegates from 30 countries, covered by 50 major media outlets, is but one example of our focus here.

Read the complete personal letter on the HOPE Blog here.

An Example of a Love Leader Amongst Us

I was deeply honored to travel to the Bay Area this week to acknowledge and thank an Operation HOPE Northwest Board Member by the name of Brian Tippens, an executive with Hewlett Packard (HP). Brian, who happens to be African-American and from the under-served community served today by the HOPE Financial Dignity Center, Oakland, cares deeply about community, and regularly gives back. But one of these acts involves his leadership around securing more than a dozen new HP first class computer systems to outfit the HOPE Inner-City Cyber Cafe at the HOPE Center, Oakland.

Brian claims that he was motivated by years ago when I gave a speech at a business conference in the Bay Area, but now it is he, and other caring executives like him, who go out of their way to stay connected to the under-served communities they grew up in and to give back, that inspire and motivate me.

Thank you Brian Tippens, for all that you do my friend. Your legacy is a living one.


John Hope Bryant is a thought leader, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and Bryant Group Companies, Inc. Magazine/CEO READ bestselling business author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass), the only African-American bestselling business author in America, and is chairman of the Subcommittee for the Under-Served and Community Empowerment for the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, for President Barack Obama.  Mr. Bryant is the co-founder of the Gallup-HOPE Index, the only national research poll on youth financial dignity and youth economic energy in the U.S. He is also a co-founder of Global Dignity with HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Professor Pekka Himanen of Finland. Global Dignity is affiliated with the Forum of Young Global Leaders and the World Economic Forum.   Mr. Bryant serves on the board of directors of Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation, an NYSE Euronext publicly traded company, and a division of $54 billion Ares Capital.

Operation HOPE Cyber Cafe -- Where You Go To Get A JOB

Every now and then I have one of those 'moments,' where I clearly see, feel and understand the power and impact of our work in the lives of real people. Real people in the communities we serve. Such was the case this week when I traveled to the Bay Area for a round of meetings, and then wrapped it up with remarks and thanks given to a HOPE Board Member (Brian Tippens) and partner (Hewlett Packard) that donated new computers for our HOPE Inner-City Cyber Cafe. While at the HOPE Financial Dignity Center, Oakland, a partnership with Bank of the West, a gentleman named Karl Seabrook. And that is where I my 'moment.'

John Hope Bryant Open Letter to Leaders, August, 2012

 

                                                                                                                            August 16, 2012

 

An Open Letter to Leaders

For 20 years Operation HOPE has been about progress for the underserved here in America and around the world.  Now, on our 20th anniversary in 2012, we have hit the internal and external 'reset' button with respect to our strategic focus, our approach, operations, and even the results we seek for those we serve.  What comes next sets us up for the next 20 years. 

For 20 years HOPE was structured around a triangle approach to leadership, where my senior leadership team and I issued directives and the rest of the organization responded, or worse, simply waited for direction.  This approach was actually appropriate for a start-up trying to forge and frame its culture and way of operating.  In June, 2012, we completed an internal restructure around a diamond approach to leadership, where my senior team and I are at the bottom of the triangle, supporting our newly minted group of top-line division presidents, portfolio leaders, local CEOs, market presidents and others who now take 'ownership' of the HOPE brand wherever they live, work and operate.  Accordingly, it is with great pleasure that I announce the following promotions and key appointments:

Operation HOPE at 20: A Look at Who We IMPACT

 

A special thank you to Rod McGrew, global chief of brand for Operation HOPE, for producing this summary of Operation HOPE's impact in the lives of people.  Real people. Our clients. The more than 1.5M we have served over the last 20 years.

Operation HOPE Announces 20 Year Service Report Card

 

The Operation HOPE family is proud to present our 20th anniversary "Report Card" on financial dignity, service leadership and the financial and economic empowermwent of our people, to our people.  The below is our report to the world.  Let me know what you think of our global results to date, and the results we have achieved to date on behalf of others. 

Operation HOPE Announces 20 Year Service Report Card.

20 Years Old Today: Operation HOPE 's Founder Reports on Progress

20 years ago today, on May 5th, 1992, the organization that would change my life and give my life both purpose and incredible meaning -- Operation HOPE -- was born.  

Born after the worst riot and civil unrest in our nation's history, I remember my own personal frustration in the hours and days following the rioting in South Central Los Angeles. I also remember precisely right where I was, at the exact time when our community seemed to come unglued.  I was standing in my westside offices for Bryant Group Companies, then located at Santa Monica and Sepulveda Boulevard in the Westwood Gateway complex buildings.  I was standing there, looking at my community burn.  

I will tell my own personal story in a separate post, but needless to say, what I saw, made me want to act.  And act we did.  Soon, Operation HOPE had assembled its first loyal employees, led by my chief of staff Rachael Doff who is still with me today, soon followed by Lance Triggs, now executive vice president, and not long thereafter came Mary Hagerty, now Mrs. Mary Hagerty Ehrsam, who is first senior vice president and global chief of financial literacy. Then came our own Jena Roscoe, who literally walked out the door from her last job at the White House working in the second term of President Bill Clinton, to run our then new Operation HOPE Office of Government Relations and Public Policy.  And then there was my best friend Rod McGrew, who was the first HOPE Corps volunteer for the organization.  And then there was Fred Smith, our first president, and so many others. Slowly, all the executive and senior leadership team pieces began to come together.

HOPE has four principle divisions, HOPE Coalition America, HOPE Financial Dignity Centers (featuring 700 Credit Score Communities), Banking on Our Future and our newest division, HOPE Business In A Box (inclusive of the Gallup-HOPE Index), and has now been on the move for 20 years, serving South Central Los Angeles and countless underserved communities across the country; even around the world, just like it.  

Here is a quick snapshot of our global results (not including the work and results of Global Dignity, a sister organization to Operation HOPE):

$1.4 billion – the amount raised and invested by HOPE in and for the under-served population, from private and public sources. 

1,000 Plus - the number low-wealth homeowners and small business owners created and funded with responsible mortgage and small business loans.   

Just one of these countless minority owned small business success stories is Drobe Clothing (http://www.drobe.com/Story.html). I purchase all of my professional suits from this HOPE success story, paying full retail, which is recycling black dollars too. Drobe was created by a young black man, not much older than myself when I started Operation HOPE, and now it employs 6 local people, pays its local taxes, and in so doing adds to the whole of Los Angeles.  This is the real story of where most jobs come from.

$500 Million - the value of the subprime mortgages that the Mortgage HOPE Crisis Hotline has modified or restructured in the subprime crisis, at no cost to the borrower. 

155,243 – the number of individuals directly assisted by the National Mortgage HOPE Crisis Hotline.

241,577 – the number of individuals educated in the homebuyer, credit, small business, EITC, and foreclosure prevention workshops.

150,000 – the number of individuals HOPE served in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  And we are still there, serving others years after.

$15 Million – the amount of Earned Income Tax Credits funded to survivors of Hurricane Katrina alone.

273 – the number of cities in the U.S. and South Africa where HOPE currently exists.

5,000 – number of current HOPE partnerships with private sector companies, non-profit organizations, schools and government entities.

30,369 – the number youth and adults educated through the Banking on Our Future program in South Africa alone.

45,828 – the number HOPE Cyber Cafés memberships, including the Cyber Cafe at 3721 South La Brea Avenue, in L.A.

2,000,000 – individuals served to date through HOPE’s Empowerment programs, Banking on Our Future, the HOPE Financial Dignity Centers and HOPE Coalition America.

Today, HOPE is headquartered at Wilshire Boulevard and Hope Street in Downtown, L.A. and led there by our president and chief operating officer Mr. Bill Walbrecher.

Bryant Receives California Black Chamber of Commerce Leadership and Service Award in Sacramento, California

I was honored to give the closing keynote speech for the three day annual conference of and for the California Black Chamber of Commerce today here in Sacramento, California, and afterwards to accept a leadership award from my lifelong friend and community service mentor Mr. Aubry Stone, CEO of the chamber.  Aubry is a legend in California black business circles and has been there with me for as long as I can remember.

I spoke today on the power of black business and entrepreneurship to save our community, in what I described as this next round of the civil rights movement, or silver rights empowerment for all.  I spoke of the power of financial dignity, and financial literacy as the new civil rights tool to empower our people.  I spoke of the critical role that black business owners can, and indeed must play in this next edition of our work for our people.