Matt Johanson

Matt co-founded Just Act Partners in 2023 with Juatise Gathings to help organizations execute with excellence and develop both the systems and capabilities they need to advance equity with sustained impact. Matt and Juatise decided to hang their own shingle with the firm conviction that expanding equitable economic opportunity for all Chicagoans is the single most important challenge they could pursue with their time, talents, and treasures.

Matt previously spent nearly 28 years at Discover Financial Services. Most recently he was Discover’s Chief ESG Officer and Senior Vice President of Social Impact, and he led Discover’s corporate initiative to establish a new 1,000-job Customer Care Center in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood. Through the work and relationships born of that project, Matt’s passion for an equitable Chicago and his motivation to inspire, motivate, and assist others to take action, create jobs, and otherwise use their platform, power and privilege to create economic opportunity on the south and west sides of Chicago was deeply rooted.

Earlier at Discover, Caterpillar, Hewitt Associates (now Aon/Alight), and Eastman Kodak Co, Matt led in roles across Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Talent Management, Talent Development, Lean Management, Operations, Marketing, Data Analytics, Risk Management, and Information Technology.

Matt is a graduate of Illinois State University where he and his wife have established the Matt & Sue Johanson Diversity in Technology endowment. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and is a Leadership Greater Chicago 2022 Daniel Burnham Fellow.

Matt also serves as Secretary on the Board of Directors of Little Friends, a Chicagoland nonprofit organization serving children and adults with autism and other neurodiversities.