Celebrating Our Honorees
2019 Commencement Speaker and Honorary Degree Recipients
Ms. Sheila C. Johnson
Founder and CEO Salamander Hotels & Resorts
Ms. Sheila C. Johnson is founder and CEOof Salamander Hotels & Resorts (SHR), a collectionof luxury properties with more than $200 millionin revenue in 2018. It is ranked number four inminority-owned companies in the Washington metropolitan area. SHR includes the equestrian inspired Salamander Resort & Spa in Middleburg,Virginia, awarded the esteemed Forbes five-starrating. The collection features two top golf resorts in Florida: Hammock Beach in Palm Coast andInnisbrook in Tampa Bay (home of the annual PGA Valspar Championship at the acclaimedCopperhead course). Other properties include the Henderson Beach Resort in Destin, Florida,and the Hotel Bennett in Charleston, South Carolina, which opened in January 2019.
As vice chairman of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Ms. Johnson is the only African-American woman to have ownership in three professional sports teams: the NBA’s Washington Wizards, NHL’s Washington Capitals (2018 Stanley Cup Champions), and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, for which she serves as president and managing partner. She also served on the Executive Committee of the United States Golf Association, where she spearheaded efforts to increase diversity in the game of golf.
Ms. Johnson was on Forbes magazine’s 2017 list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women. In2016, she co-founded WE Capital, a venture capital consortium to support and empowerfemale-led enterprises advancing transformational social change. She also serves on the board of the Greater Washington Partnership, which seeks to strengthen the region’s globalposition as a center for commerce and innovation.
She was a founding partner of Black Entertainment Television. She served as executiveproducer of four documentary films, including Kicking It, A Powerful Noise, She Is the Matador, and The Other City. She also helped finance the Screen Actors Guild-nominatedfeature film, Lee Daniels’ The Butler. She is the founder and chair of the Middleburg FilmFestival, an annual celebration of independent film.
Ms. Johnson serves on the Board of Governors of Parsons The New School for Design andis a member of the Leadership Council at Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. She is also a board member of the Jackie Robinson Foundation.
An accomplished violinist, she received a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Illinois, as well as honorary degrees from numerous institutions. She lives in Middleburg, Virginia, is married to the Honorable William T. Newman Jr., and has two children.