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Best Practices: Virginia Hotelier Sheila Johnson Knows Diversity is Good For Business
The founder and CEO of Salamander Hotel & Resorts on hosting a new kind of food event, owning three professional sports teams, and learning to play the cello during the pandemic.
August 06, 2021
What happens when a multihyphenate billionaire business owner meets an emergent chef hustling to become a multihyphenate business owner himself? In the case of Sheila Johnson and Kwame Onwuachi, what happens is The Family Reunion, a new event at Johnson's resort in Middleburg, Virginia that celebrates diversity in the hospitality industry.
More than a dozen chefs, sommeliers, and food personalities like Mashama Bailey, Carla Hall, Padma Lakshmi, and Gregory Gourdet will join Onwuachi and Johnson August 19-22 at Salamander Resort & Spa in Middleburg, Virginia, for a slate of panels, demos, music, and meals that celebrate Black cooking traditions that have shaped American cuisine. A limited number of multi-day passes and overnight packages are still available here.
"No one else was doing it, and there is so much talent out there," Johnson says. "This is my property, and I have the vessel to be able to do this."
Johnson is used to being one of the biggest thinkers in the room, pushing her managers and fellow board members to evolve faster. She co-founded BET in 1980 and became the first African-American woman billionaire in America when Viacom bought it 20 years later. Now an owner and investor in hotel properties in the United States and the Caribbean, she's also the co-owner of three Washington DC-based professional sports teams, including the WNBA Washington Mystics for whom she serves as president and managing partner.
Diversity is a core value at Johnson's businesses and is crucial for the bottom line, she says. "There are so many companies that need to rethink how they're going to not only build within their employment base, but also how they're going to understand that diversity is a moral obligation," Johnson says. "It's really critical to their success. I think the more diversity you show the bigger your clientele base is going to be.
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