Biography

Vanessa Johnson, Washington, DC is a recognized advocate, community leader and champion for people living with HIV (PLHIV) and social justice issues. Her career accomplishments include 35 years of service in advocacy and program development scaling up domestic consumer responsive community health services. In this pursuit, Johnson has dedicated over 25 years specifically to developing and providing capacity building assistance for HIV with a special emphasis on women living with HIV. She is an experienced facilitator and nationally certified trainer with a focus on leadership development, community mobilization and public health interventions.

Vanessa is a sought-after public speaker and an innovative program designer for peer and consumer leadership trainings and community mobilization campaigns. She has established proven expertise in collaborative work with community-based organizations, health departments, and members of the PLWHA community. At the organizational level, she has expertise in successful proposal writing, business plans, policies and procedures (governance, personnel, and operations) and developing partnerships with a variety of institutions and organizations. Johnson has served as Vice-President at several nonprofit organizations whose mission is to improve the health outcomes and quality of life of people living with living with HIV by ensuring they have access to quality health and human services and that their rights are to live a full and productive life are protected.

She has managed federal and state multi-year cooperative agreements and portfolios of over one million dollars.

Ribbon A-Center of Excellence is a nationally recognized nonprofit organization founded in 2019 by Vanessa Johnson, MPA, JD, and Linda H. Scruggs, MHS, LPC, two Black women living with HIV. The organization’s physical location near the nation's capital in Largo, Maryland, provides strategic access to policymakers, government agencies, and national HIV organizations, strengthening its capacity to address HIV-related issues and health disparities nationally. Initially established as a private-public health consulting firm focusing on HIV and AIDS in 2012, Ribbon has since evolved into a nonprofit organization offering various organizational development, policy advocacy initiatives, peer leadership, and capacity-building assistance programs across the United States. Ribbon's mission addresses the racial and social disparities that disproportionately affect vulnerable communities, depriving them of health and wealth.

Just a few of the organizations that she created or co-created, include the U.S. People Living with HIV Caucus, Capital District African American Coalition on AIDS (CDAACA), Catch a Rising Star, Saving our Sisters, National Women and AIDS Collective, the 30 for 30 Campaign, PWN-USA, the innovative, CDC-recognized Common Threads microenterprise program for women living with and affected by HIV, and Butterfly-Rising, an evaluated trauma-informed intervention for women with HIV. Vanessa has also steered other essential spaces fighting for the rights of people living with HIV as the National Association of People Living with AIDS (NAPWA) and trained hundreds of women living with and affected by HIV to help us thrive with dignity. Vanessa helped author PWN’s seminal sexual and reproductive justice report for women with HIV, published in 2013: Unspoken: Sexual, Romance and Reproductive Freedom for Women Living with HIV. She is a women living with HIV and leads in HIV with a firm hand, a warm heart, and a clear vision for justice, liberation, and healing all PLWH.