James A. Johnson, chairman and CEO of Johnson Capital Partners, a private investment company, will speak at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management Nov. 16 on "Corporate Responsibility in the 21st Century."

His talk will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Sage Hall, room B9, and is part of the Park speakers series at the Johnson School. The talk is free and open to the public, but seating is limited.

Johnson was chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998. Before joining the private shareholder-owned mortgage lending group, he was a managing director in corporate finance at Lehman Brothers, an equity research firm. He was executive assistant to U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale from 1977 to 1981, advising him on domestic and foreign policy and political matters, and also ran a Washington-based consulting firm that advised corporations on strategic issues.

Johnson is chair of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and chair of the board of trustees of the Brookings Institution, a private policy advising group, or think tank. He serves on a number of corporate boards, among them the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and was named the 1998 "Washingtonian of the Year" by Washingtonian magazine. He holds an MPA degree in public affairs from Princeton University.

The Park Leadership Speakers Series brings several business leaders each year to Cornell to deliver public lectures on topics of national importance. The series is part of the Johnson School's Park Leadership Fellows Program, established in 1997 through the support of the Park Foundation and the estate of the late media entrepreneur Roy H. Park. The program aims to develop leadership qualities, particularly those of good corporate citizenship, in future business executives. Past speakers have included Perry Odak, CEO of Ben and Jerry's Homemade; Jay Walker, founder of Priceline.com; and Orit Gadiesh, chair of Bain and Co.