The Catalyst
Ideas with a spark, energy, range and the ability to start things.
Sheila Johnson reads as The Catalyst because she converts personal conviction into collective momentum, repeatedly and across industries that rarely intersect. Co-founding BET ignited a media movement for Black audiences before the industry acknowledged one existed. She then carried that same energy into hospitality, sports ownership, and philanthropy, each pivot mobilising new communities around her vision.
“Yes Yeah, that's a really smart. We should pursue that topic because I do think the idea of, of all people, Walter Isn't asked me to ask about that, how do you integrate going forward? And I think young people do it effortlessly in a lot of ways. Yeah.”
“A channel, you can have a channel on YouTube that's accessing so many people. Much cheaper a lot on that. So we wanted to talk to her about that idea of identity programming and whether it feels as urgent now as it did in the 1980s when she started this thing and also to speak to her about her memoir, which is out this month, Walkthrough…”
“Okay, so another place you moved into is sports. You were offered a stake in the mystics, which is a women's basketball team by Abe Pollen, who'd been the longtime owner of several of the sports teams in Washington.”
“Yes, today's show is produced by Naeem Araza, Christian Castro Rosell, Megan Cunane, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Cody Nelson, Andrea Lopez Crusado, our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan. Our theme music is by Trachadamics. If you're already following the show, you get the whole ball of wax.”
The David Rubenstein Show: “Sheila Johnson”
LISTEN AT THE SOURCE ↗THE RECORD IS CHECKABLE