Shontavia Johnson

Why organisations work with Shontavia Johnson

• A working intellectual property lawyer who can speak plainly to founders, intrapreneurs, and content creators about what they actually own and how to defend it.
• Practical authority on inclusive entrepreneurship from inside a major US research university, not from a consultancy deck. She runs Clemson’s entrepreneurship and innovation function.
• A track record of turning an academic specialism (she was Drake Law School’s first Black woman to earn tenure and an endowed chair) into mainstream platforms: TIME, The Washington Post, NPR, SXSW, Smithsonian, TEDxAtlanta.
• An operator’s view of where inclusive innovation actually breaks down: access to capital, IP literacy, network sponsorship, and the gap between ideas and ownership.
• Aspen Institute Liberty Fellow and Fulbright Specialist to Uzbekistan, with experience translating IP and entrepreneurship frameworks across developed and emerging economies.

Biography highlights

• Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Clemson University
• First African-American woman to receive full tenure and an endowed chair at Drake University Law School; former director of its Intellectual Property Law Center
• Liberty Fellow, Aspen Institute; member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network
• Fulbright Specialist to Uzbekistan
• Twice named one of the Top 40 Young Lawyers in the United States (American Bar Association and National Bar Association); Jackie Robinson Foundation 42 Under 40 Alumni Award
• Bylines and features in TIME, Fortune, Newsweek, The Washington Post, LA Times, U.S. News & World Report, CNN, NPR

Biography

Innovation conversations in large organisations tend to skip a step. They focus on culture and pipeline, then move to outputs and revenue, and rarely pause on the practical question in between: who owns the idea, and who is positioned to commercialise it. That is the gap Shontavia Johnson works in.

She trained as an engineer, then as a lawyer, and holds a licence to practise patent law. At Drake University Law School she became the first African-American woman to receive full tenure and an endowed chair, and ran the Intellectual Property Law Center. She now serves as Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Clemson University, where she connects students, founders, corporates, and other universities into a working entrepreneurial system.

Her public work argues that inclusive entrepreneurship is a commercial question before it is a values one. Through LVRG, a community for women of colour entrepreneurs, and earlier the Brand and Business Company, she has built education and ownership pathways for founders the venture system tends to underestimate. Her writing has appeared in TIME, Fortune, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report, and she has been interviewed across NPR, CNN, and the LA Times.

The Aspen Institute named her a Liberty Fellow, placing her in its Global Leadership Network. The US State Department deployed her as a Fulbright Specialist to Uzbekistan to advise on intellectual property. Across both stages, the through-line is the same: original ideas only become advantage when the people generating them know how to protect and commercialise them.

Key speaking topics

• Inclusive entrepreneurship and access to capital
• Intellectual property strategy for founders and creators
• Intrapreneurship and innovation inside large organisations
• Personal brand and idea ownership
• Entrepreneurship education and university-industry partnerships
• Diversity and innovation as a commercial argument

Ideal for

• Innovation, R&D, and IP leadership teams
• Chief diversity and inclusion officers working on entrepreneurship, supplier diversity, and founder programmes
• University and corporate-venture leadership building entrepreneurial pipelines
• Conferences and audiences focused on inclusive growth, creator economies, and venture inclusion

Audience outcomes

• A clearer view of where inclusive innovation breaks down operationally, not rhetorically
• Specific language for talking about intellectual property as a strategic asset for founders and intrapreneurs
• The commercial case for backing underestimated founders, with named programmes and mechanisms
• An applied framework for converting personal expertise and lived experience into ownable intellectual property and brand
• Permission and prompts to act on ideas already inside the organisation