Anderson Black Alumni President Is Also a Math YouTuber

“As you can tell from looking at my LinkedIn page, I’m not one to shy away from challenges.”

So says Stephen A. Johnson (B.S. ’05, ’21), an entrepreneur, CEO advisor, consultant, math YouTuber, author and more. The multi-hyphenate UCLA Anderson FEMBA graduate also recently became president of Anderson Black Alumni, formerly known as the UCLA Anderson African American Alumni Association.

“When it was brought to my attention, I had been looking for an opportunity to get more involved with Anderson,” Johnson says of the position. “When this opportunity came around, it was just very exciting. It felt like it would be challenging enough to get me out of my comfort zone. And the impact could be big enough to keep me motivated.”

Being motivated doesn’t seem to be a challenge for Johnson, the son of a teen single mother who struggled to keep him and his two brothers housed — frequently moving around Los Angeles County — while pushing them to focus on their education and faith.

“As I was growing up, my mom and my grandmother were very big on education and spirituality. Most of my time was spent in church or studying and making sure I got the grades in school,” he recalls. “That was what was most important. And then playing AAU basketball came along and that became the third leg in a sense.”

Johnson and his siblings grew up in poverty. “I didn’t really know anything else,” he says. “There’s definitely some truth in the saying ‘ignorance is bliss.’ I wouldn’t use the term bliss when I describe my childhood, but the ignorance part is apt — as to what else was available in life and what other kids were experiencing. I didn’t start to understand that until I got to Montclair Prep, a small private school in the San Fernando Valley that Cher and Michael Jackson had attended.”

Initially, Johnson landed at Montclair on a football scholarship (although he’d never played the sport), after his ninth grade year at Westchester High School in Los Angeles. From there, he went to the Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica, where as a senior he played basketball, a passion that eventually landed the L.A.-born-and-bred upstart at UCLA.

“I remember watching UCLA basketball with my grandmother as a kid,” he recalls. “I definitely bleed blue and gold, and it’s worked out for me. So, when it came to thinking about going back to school, UCLA was the only school that I really considered. I didn’t apply anywhere else.”

The fact that Johnson grew up a fan of Bruin basketball made his award as a 2020 John Wooden Global Leadership Fellow that much sweeter. “It was a surreal moment for me,” Johnson says. “My grandmother passed away a few years back, before I got the award, but she was the first person who came to mind when Dean Al Osborne called to inform me that I had won that award. I remember sitting on her couch and hearing her cheer for the Bruins, and understanding who John Wooden was, the legend that he was on campus and beyond. I remember going to games as a kid, and seeing John Wooden sitting courtside, hearing the applause he’d receive when the announcer honored his presence. So, as much as it was a business school award, my mind went straight to all the wonderful sports-related memories that I have. My wife recorded the entire moment of me finding out I’d won. It’s a memory I’ll never forget.”

In fact, Johnson was so affected by Wooden’s legacy, that when his younger brother Marcus was recruited to play basketball for the University of Connecticut, he gave him one of Wooden’s books to read. “Wooden was so influential in my life, through the sport I loved and the type of character he had, that I gifted my brother his book,” he says. “It felt like an extension of the morals and ethical code I have developed for myself.”

Johnson earned his UCLA undergraduate degree in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics in 2005, and worked in a science laboratory at Cedars Sinai Medical Center — where he fought for, and won, his autonomy to privately fund his own research projects through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Syndromes. Yet his plans to pursue a Ph.D. were put on hold when he began to find success and profit in his side business as a private tutor.

“I started tutoring while I was in college, though it was just as a side gig,” he says. “I never thought anything serious of it at all, to be honest. It was only after I graduated and was at Cedars that the business of tutoring started to really pick up for me.” He soon realized that he was making more money and was much happier working part-time as a tutor, so he decided to quit his research job and pursue his passion for educating youth throughout L.A. County. He founded Bright Minds Tutoring and has worked with hundreds of students, many of whom are, like him, first-generation college students.

His success with Bright Minds whetted his appetite for further entrepreneurial challenges, hence his decision to go back to UCLA and pursue an Anderson MBA.

For Johnson, a father of four children, the Fully Employed MBA program made sense. “I knew that I wasn’t necessarily going to go back and do a full-time program,” he says. “I learned more about the FEMBA program and met with individuals on the admissions team, and went on what I would call a listening tour, just talking to as many people as I could, listening to as many experiences as I could.

“The whole goal of going to business school was to build up my network,” he adds. “I had built a great network in education, but I felt like I wanted more. I had an interest in real estate. I had an interest in venture capital. There was this whole other world that I didn't really know about as an undergrad. I didn’t know about management consulting. I didn’t know about investment banking.”

Johnson (left) attended a Black Business Students Association event, where he met Class of 2023’s Gabriel Amoako and Malachi Nelson

Johnson found his time at Anderson to be an eye-opening experience. He recalls a guest speaker from a snack company in Professor Hal Hershfield’s class on marketing, behavioral decision making and psychology. “He described their marketing campaign to low-income African American families back in the ’80s and ’90s. I’m one of maybe two African Americans in the class, and I start to remember seeing the commercials that he’s now describing that were targeted to African Americans. It really was a full-circle moment for me to understand the power of marketing,” he recalls. “There was a moment in which I could have been offended by what I was hearing and the way it was so tongue-in-cheek and matter-of-fact, and, in another way, it was inspiring because it showed me the sheer effectiveness of targeted marketing on influencing people’s behavior.

“I want to do the exact same thing,” he says. “I want to do it not just to make money and sell products that may or may not be healthy for people, I want to follow that same path and actually help people improve their lives. So, it’s an inspiring message.”

Johnson also spread his own inspiring message by self-publishing his first book, Small Beginnings Require Bigger Dreams, in 2020. “It’s biographical, but it’s not like a full-on autobiography,” he explains. “It’s really a story of entrepreneurial growth and how to psychologically, emotionally and spiritually interpret all the ups and downs that can come along with becoming an entrepreneur and creating value in the world.”

To that end, Johnson is taking that inspiration to his busy day-to-day schedule, which has him focusing on his YouTube math channel in the a.m. while switching gears to advising founders, reviewing pitch decks and consulting in the afternoon.

“I’m an early riser,” he says. “I’m up at 5 a.m. every day and I typically meditate and go to hot yoga every morning to get my day started.

“My biggest project right now is a YouTube channel, where my goal is to become the biggest online math teacher in the world,” he says. “I’m focusing my attention on SAT math right now, but I'm expanding from that into other math subjects like calculus and geometry as well.”

While Johnson acknowledges that this is a business venture, he points out that this project is also driven by philanthropy. “In my heart, I really want to give back,” he says. “That’s how I was raised. That’s what helped me to escape the environment that I was in, and I think it’s a key for a lot of students, a lot of people, a lot of human beings out there who want to dream bigger than where their current circumstances have landed them.”

Although his afternoons vary, he’s usually focusing on various business-related ventures. “I’m meeting with VCs who are friends, whom I try to keep in touch with to understand what’s going on in that landscape,” he says. “I’m also an angel investor, so sometimes there are meetings with companies that are raising money. There’s always a good mix of entrepreneurial conversations with friends who want to start new ventures or who are looking for advice”

With his varied experience and passion, Johnson is primed to take the ABA and its members to new heights. “My plan with the ABA is to connect us in spaces where we can be heard,” he says. “That means connecting us with events and in groups and organizations that already exist on campus that I believe would love to hear from diverse voices. And through partnership with those folks, we can provide opportunities for our members to have a voice in the future of Anderson, while also letting prospective students know that there is a place for them at UCLA Anderson.”