Henri Crown Fellowship Program

Program Overview

The Henri Crown Fellowship Program, established in 1997, seeks to develop our next generation of community-spirited leaders, providing them with the tools necessary to meet the challenges of corporate and civic leadership in the 21st century.

The program is a unique mix of intellectual and personal development seminars designed to broaden the perspectives of the participants and hone their skills in values-based leadership. It honors the memory of Chicago industrialist Henry Crown (1896-1990), whose legendary career was marked by a lifelong commitment to honor, integrity, industry, and philanthropy. View photos from the tenth year anniversary celebration.

The Program

Each year a class of 20 Crown Fellows is chosen from among young executives and professionals nominated for their potential to provide leadership at the highest level of corporate and civic responsibility. The selected candidates are men and women between the ages of 25 and 45 who have already achieved considerable success in the private or public sector.

The two-year program is made up of a variety of seminar components and leadership development activities under the guidance of skilled Aspen Institute seminar leaders and senior mentors. It involves 22 days of seminar meetings plus the time allocated for individual community leadership projects.

Individuals cannot apply to the Crown Fellowship Program on their own; they must be nominated by recognized leaders of the business and professional communities or by Fellows, Senior Mentors, members of the Henry Crown Fellowship Board of Overseers or the Aspen Institute Board of Trustees.

Joyce Johnson-Miller, 40, Partner, The Relativity Fund, New York, NY.

Joyce is a Partner and Co-Head of the Relativity Fund, L.P., a private equity fund that invests in both distressed and healthy middle market companies. She was previously Managing Director of Cerberus Capital Management, LLC, where she was responsible for investing and trading in distressed investments and has been an active investor in the distressed investment market for more than 15 years. In 1995, while at Cerberus, she founded JJM, LLC, a certified minority owned private equity fund focused solely on distressed middle market investments in the manufacturing, automotive and related industries. Joyce also worked as a Vice President with ING Bank’s Corporate Restructuring Group where she specialized in investing and recapitalizing distressed middle market companies and she began her career at Citicorp’s Leveraged Capital group financing leveraged buyouts and acquisitions. Joyce has served on the Board of Directors of twelve companies and currently serves on the Board of Directors of two privately held companies. She received her B.A. from the University of Denver in 1987.

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