Leadership, Values to Be Harder Lecture Topic

“Leadership, Values, and Institutional Success in the 21st Century” is the title of this year’s F. William Harder Lecture to be delivered Wednesday, March 20, by James A. Johnson, vice chairman of Perseus, LLC, a merchant banking and private equity firm based in Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Free and open to the public, the event begins at 5:30 p.m. in Gannett Auditorium of Palamountain Hall. Prior to the lecture, Johnson will receive an honorary doctoral degree from Skidmore.

Johnson went to Perseus in 2000 after a decade at the helm of Fannie Mae, the largest non-bank financial services company in the world and the nation’s largest source of mortgage financing. Johnson’s Fannie Mae responsibilities over 10 years included such positions as vice chairman, chairman, chief executive officer, and chairman of the executive committee. In 1994, he was named “CEO of the Year” by the George Washington University School of Business and Public Management.

He earlier held leadership positions at Lehman Brothers and at Public Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm he founded to advise corporations on strategic issues.
From 1977 to 1981, Johnson was executive assistant to Vice President Walter F. Mondale, advising the vice president on domestic and foreign policy and political matters.

Johnson serves as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and is chairman of the board of trustees of the Brookings Institution. He was elected last year to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is on the board of a number of organizations, including Gannett, Inc.; the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.; Target Corp.; and the National Association on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. He also is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

A graduate of the University of Minnesota, where he received a B.A. degree in political science, Johnson earned a master’s degree in public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. He has received honorary doctorates from Howard University and from Colby College.

Johnson and his wife, Maxine Isaacs, a member of Skidmore’s Class of ’69, live in Washington, D.C., with their son, Alfred.

Skidmore’s annual F. William Harder Lecture was inaugurated in 1985 and made possible by the generosity of F. William Harder, a Skidmore parent who served as trustee from 1968 to 1980. The lecture brings together students and faculty with industry leaders to explore the current business environment and the challenges that lie ahead.

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