Jason William JohnsonInstructor, Verizon Small Business Digital Ready

Jason William Johnson, also known as Notorious B.I.Z., is an economic development leader, professor, entrepreneur, and Ph.D. candidate with over 15 years of experience training and coaching entrepreneurs.  He is also a hip-hop recording artist and producer that uses music to educate and inspire entrepreneurs.    Jason served as Director of the Chicago Urban League Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation from 2017-2021, where the business startup program he designed helped over 500 entrepreneurs successfully start businesses.  He also led programming that supported established businesses in acquiring $145,000,000 in new contracts and financing. He's been a featured subject matter expert and contributor for Forbes, is a doctoral candidate in Organizational Leadership and served as an adjunct professor at Illinois Institute of Technology from 2019-2021. Currently, Jason is a Director at Next Street, a firm that provides governments, philanthropy, and corporations with solutions that connect small businesses with the right resources at the right time. He is a faculty member for Experiential Classroom, a premier clinic that teaches best practices in entrepreneurship education to university and community college faculty across the country.  He's also an instructor on Verizon Small Business Digital Ready, where he teaches the OKR course. As an entrepreneur, Jason launched and operated a boutique advisory firm that provided strategy consulting, web development, and brand consulting to small to medium-sized businesses and nonprofit organizations from 2009-2013. He also was co-founder and CEO of Konveau, a technology firm that used personality compatibility to help people break the ice at networking events.  In his spare time, Jason enjoys meditation, music production, songwriting, playing with his collection of tech toys, and spending quality time with his wife and two sons.