James H. Johnson, Jr. is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of strategy and entrepreneurship in the Kenan-Flagler Business School and director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center in the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include community and economic development, the effects of demographic changes on the U.S. workplace, interethnic minority conflict in advanced industrial societies, poverty and public policy in urban America, and workforce diversity issues. He has published more than 100 scholarly research articles and three research monographs and has co-edited four theme issues of scholarly journals on these and related topics. Currently he is researching strategies to combat hyper-segregation,  persistent and concentrated poverty, and gentrification-induced residential and economic dislocations in U.S. cities. And he currently works with gentrifying cities to develop roadmaps for inclusive and equitable economic development that creates shared prosperity. Fast Company profiled him in “Hopes and Dreams.” He received his PhD from Michigan State University, his MS from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his BS from North Carolina Central University.