sheila c. johnson, new school trustee and entrepreneur, featured "At the parsons Table"

WHAT:

The New School continues its lively series of At the Parsons Table with leading philanthropist and entrepreneur Sheila C. Johnson in a conversation with architecture and design critic and Joseph Urban Professor of Design Paul Goldberger. The talk will address Johnson's career as an entrepreneur across an array of fields, how conditions for success in business have evolved over time and the importance of diversity and inclusion in the business world. Presented before a live audience at The New School’s University Center, At the Parsons Table features today’s leading voices in the fields of art, architecture, and design in conversation with Goldberger. Previous speakers have included Michael Graves, Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, and more.

WHO:

Sheila C. Johnson: A successful entrepreneur and impassioned philanthropist.  

As CEO of Salamander Hotels & Resorts, a hospitality company she founded in 2005, Ms. Johnson oversees a growing portfolio of luxury properties, including the equestrian-inspired Salamander Resort & Spa in Middleburg, VA. 

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, the NHL’s Washington Capitals, and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, for which she serves as President and Managing Partner. She also serves on the Executive Committee of the United States Golf Association.

Ms. Johnson has long been a powerful influence in the entertainment industry, starting with her work as founding partner of Black Entertainment Television. She has served as executive producer of four documentary films, and helped to finance the Screen Actors Guild nominated feature film The Butler, directed by Lee Daniels.

A fervent supporter of education and the arts, she serves on the Board of Governors of The New School's Parsons School of Design in New York, and is a member of the Leadership Council at Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership (CPL). 
 
Paul Goldberger: Joseph Urban Chair of Architecture and Design at The New School and the former dean of Parsons School of Design, who The Huffington Post has called “the leading figure in architecture criticism.” He is Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair and from 1997 through 2011 he served as the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where he wrote the magazine’s celebrated “Sky Line” column. He began his career at The New York Times, where in 1984 his architecture criticism was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, the highest award in journalism.
 
He is the author of several books, most recently Why Architecture Matters, published in 2009 by Yale University Press; Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture, a collection of his architecture essays published in 2009 by Monacelli Press; and Christo and Jeanne-Claude, published in 2010 by Taschen. He is now at work on a full-length biography of the architect Frank Gehry, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf. In 2008 Monacelli published Beyond the Dunes: A Portrait of the Hamptons, which he produced in association with the photographer Jake Rajs. Paul Goldberger’s chronicle of the process of rebuilding Ground Zero, entitled UP FROM ZERO: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, which was published by Random House in the fall of 2004, and brought out in a new, updated paperback edition in 2005, was named one of The New York Times Notable Books for 2004. Paul Goldberger has also written The City Observed: New York, The Skyscraper, On the Rise: Architecture and Design in a Post-Modern Age, Above New York, and The World Trade Center Remembered.
 
His writing has received numerous awards in addition to the Pulitzer, including the President’s Medal of the Municipal Art Society of New York, the medal of the American Institute of Architects and the Medal of Honor of the New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation, awarded in recognition of what the Foundation called “the nation’s most balanced, penetrating and poetic analyses of architecture and design.” In May 1996, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani presented him with the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission’s Preservation Achievement Award in recognition of the impact of his writing on historic preservation in New York. In 1993, he was named a Literary Lion, the New York Public Library’s tribute to distinguished writers. In 2007, he was presented with the Ed Bacon Foundation’s Award for Professional Excellence, named in honor of Philadelphia’s legendary planner, and in 2009 he received the Gene Burd Urban Journalism Award from the Urban Communication Foundation.

WHEN

Saturday, October 10, 2015, 5-6:30 p.m.

WHERE

The New School’s John L. Tishman Auditorium, University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, Room U100, New York, NY 10003