John Hope Bryant

John Hope Bryant and Operation HOPE Meets with Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke

Today I was honored to meet with friend of HOPE and friend to underserved communities everywhere -- U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C.

Meeting with the Chairman reminded me of why we gave him our HOPE Award in the first place, when he came to speak at our last HOPE Global Financial Literacy Summit in Anacostia. The Chairman has been a big supporter of financial literacy in the past, and today I formally briefed him on what I believe comes next in the silver rights movement, or financial dignity for all. We spoke about HOPE's 20th Anniversary (May 5th, 2012), our domestic and global work, our Gallup-HOPE Index results, the Gallup-HOPE Index Cities Initiative, the new HOPE Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, HOPE Business-In-A-Box, the Wikia-HOPE Global Money Initiative, and our on- the-ground results. Separately, I discussed my new role as chairman of the new Subcommittee on the Underserved and Community Empowerment for the US President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability, a Council chaired by John Rogers. Specifically, I briefed him around our coming Local Financial Literacy Council efforts.

The Chairman has breathed confidence and a sense of stability in these times, in America and around the world. I wanted to thank him, personally. I also told him to remember that "no good deed shall go unpunished." To keep on moving forward, serving, helping.

Stay tuned for more to come from my meeting with the Chairman, and his team. Jena Roscoe, HOPE Government Relations Chief, staffed me for this important meeting.


John Hope Bryant is founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and bestselling author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass).

- Posted from my iPhone

U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability Announces Subcommittee for the Underserved and Community Empowerment

Operation HOPE Founder John Hope Bryant Appointed Subcommittee Chairman

Washington, DC,  January 19, 2012

Financial dignity empowerment nonprofit, Operation HOPE (HOPE) today announced that HOPE Founder, Chairman and CEO John Hope Bryant has been appointed chairman of the recently announced Subcommittee on the Underserved and Community Empowerment for the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability (“Council”). The subcommittee reports to the full Council, which is chaired by business leader John Rogers, chairman of Ariel Capital Management. Amy Rosen, CEO of NFTE, serves as Council vice chair.

As part of the President’s mandate to serve and empower the underserved, the subcommittee will maintain a full and robust agenda, led by a local financial literacy council plan of action with cities and states. Bryant’s relationships with nonprofits, district leaders in both public and private sectors will help facilitate the building of community networks.

Operation HOPE CEO Discusses Occupy Wallstreet with Capitol Hill Radio Program | Operation HOPE Blog

Operation HOPE CEO Discusses Occupy Wallstreet with Capitol Hill Radio Program | Operation HOPE Blog.

 

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 a Member of 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. 

 

A Conversation on Leadership & Jobs with Ambassador Andrew Young and Jim Clifton

 

Operation HOPE, as part of its 2011 Board Retreat, hosted a unique "Conversation on Leadership & Jobs" in Santa Monica, California, featuring HOPE's Global Spokesman Ambassador Andrew Young, and Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO, Gallup.  What an evening....

Following the conversation Jim Clifton signed his breakthrough new book THE COMING JOBS WAR, I signed copies of LOVE LEADERSHIP (proceeds donated to Operation HOPE of course for my book), and civil rights icon Ambassador Andrew Young signed whatever simple piece of paper excited young, and older people, slid in front of him in their moment of opportunity to meet living history (smile).

The Work of Operation HOPE for 2011

 

A special thank you to my best friend and Operation HOPE strategic advisor, Rod McGrew, for lending his voiceover skills (pro-bono of course) for this inspiring video, which was shown at the 2011 Operation HOPE Board Retreat.

Okay, let's go...

 

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 a Member of 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. 

 

SPECIAL FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST: On Leadership: Why Financial Dignity is the New Movement for Financial Literacy

 

 

John HopeBryant

Bestselling business leadership author and philanthropic entrepreneur

I am a supporter of financial literacy. I am a constructive critic of financial literacy. Both are legitimate and essential in an honestdialogue. As HOPE Global Spokesman Ambassador Andrew Young said, "John, be skeptical, but don't be cynical. To be cynical is to be without hope."

Operation HOPE pioneered financial literacy as policy within the U.S. federal government in 2008, when we inspired then President George W. Bush to sign an Executive Order establishing financial literacy as new federal government policy, and with it the creation of the first ever U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy. I was honored to serve as vice chairman for this first council, with Charles Schwab as chairman, and to serve as chairman of the Council Committee on the Under Served.

President Barack Obama took this vision to another level; bringing to life his own Executive Order during his Presidency, and thereafter establishing the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability (on which I am proud to serve), and then the Federal Consumer Protection Bureau.

President Obama named smart people to head both, with Ariel Capital Management's extremely smart founder John Rogers chairing the Council, and my friend Professor Elizabeth Warren spearheading the foundation of and for the Bureau. I recall one conversation in particular with Professor Warren, where I asked her what she would think if I said, "financial literacy was the new civil rights issue?" Not only did she agree with me, but she went on to say that she thought that "done right," while regulatory review and policy making might consume the formative years of the Bureau, its legacy should be a new foundation of financial literacy in America. Professor Warren and I agree 100%.

Read the complete article here on the Huffington Post.

 

 

 

My Position on Occupy Wall Street

While I will write something more thoughtful and respectful of the consideration that the Occupy Wall Street Movement deserves (probably as part of my article series in the Huffington Post), given that some HOPE field offices have received calls wanting to know our view, I thought it important to issue a brief public statement for now.

First and foremost, I believe that the OWS movement is as authentic at its core as the movements that made America the great country that she is, and this includes the civil rights movement, the women's sufferage movement, and even the call by average citizens for freedom from Great Britain, or the movement that created this country itself.  

Where else in the world, not the least of which the most powerful nation in the world today, can average citizens march against their government, and sometimes even their president (and other powerful interests), and not disappear tomorrow?  The fact that these marches and demonstrations exist at all, underscore the greatness of the American experiment.  It has been said that "every great marriage is made of constructive friction."  This applies to OWS as well.

That said, I have as yet made no attempt to engage the OWS movement personally, because respectfully, I just don't think they need me or Operation HOPE right now, and may not even be ready for the conversation I would like to have. Not just yet.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker Shows Leadership On Financial Literacy Agenda

Financial literacy is the founding first tool on the road to financial dignity for all. 

I was honored to join Newark Mayor Cory Booker earlier this year for the first ever White House Urban Entrepreneurship Summit where I and others spoke, and Operation HOPE was a partner in the effort with the mayor and the Obama Administration.  One of the ideas advanced during the summit, by Michael Blake from the Obama Administration and others including Reshma Saujani (pictured above), was the creation of a Mayor's Financial Literacy Council in Newark, New Jersey, fashioned after the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability (on which I serve for the President).

While many public officials these days are rightly so accused of talking and seldom if ever delivering, I am pleased to say today that Mayor Cory Booker did precisely the opposite here.  He said very little about the initiartive in the weeks following the summit, but then after a subsequent meeting between another member of the President's Council, my friend Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz (also Council Partnership Committee Chair), and later myself and my right arm for policy Jena Roscoe, I was informed that the mayor intended to act. And act he did.

John Hope Bryant on a Special Partnership with Wells Fargo Mortgage Corporation

I don't make it a habit of making excuses for profit making corporations.  Particularly, not in these times.  Countless companies would not receive as much as a kind word or mention from me today, given the damage they have heaped on our larger economy, not to mention individual homes, and the lives of people within them. And then there are the leadership standouts.  One I talk about in my bestselling business book Love Leadership, was Wells Fargo, and Wells Fargo Mortgage.  I spoke about some of their very ethical actions I was personally aware of from the past, and even right at the beginning of the engulfing subprime mortgage crisis.

But today, I have a very real and tangible example of Wells Fargo's leadership, and it involves the organization I founded, Operation HOPE.  As a result of a new and innovative partnership we announced this week, we now have the ability to adequately and sustainably help and service the thousands of needy individuals who call our Mortgage HOPE Crisis Hotline monthly (more than 150,000 consumer calls in total, to date).

Wells Fargo Commits up to $250,000 to Operation HOPE to Help Struggling Homeowners

Operation HOPE to participate in Wells Fargo effort to extend home preservation services to help homeowners with comprehensive face-to-face counseling

LOS ANGELES – Operation HOPE announced today that Wells Fargo, America’s largest mortgage lender, is committing up to $250,000 to HOPE for providing holistic, face-to-face, counseling and assistance to its customers including applying for mortgage modifications.

“This is a collaborative effort between Operation HOPE and Wells Fargo aligned to preserve homeownership,” said Bill Walbrecher, HOPE president and Chief Operating Officer. “Through this unique effort, HOPE will provide a scalable solution to help stabilize the housing market and bring relief to homeowners in distress nationwide.”

With the collaborative effort, Wells Fargo has approved Operation HOPE to help extend home preservation services to Wells Fargo mortgage customers through comprehensive face-to-face credit counseling and mortgage payment assistance.  The program provides a Web-enabled portal for counselors to transmit the necessary documents required to successfully provide assistance to customers with mortgage modifications.

“Wells Fargo believes in the critical role HUD-approved housing counselors like Operation HOPE have in assisting homeowners facing mortgage payment challenges,” said Joe Ohayon, SVP with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Community Relations.  “This collaborative effort is another example of Wells Fargo’s commitment to help customers stay in their homes.”