Alexis McGill Johnson

On July 16, 2019, McGill Johnson was announced as Planned Parenthood's acting president after the termination of Leana Wen. McGill Johnson was previously a board member and was the board's chair from 2013 to 2015. At that time, the Perception Institute listed her as being "on leave." On June 26, 2020, she was elevated to permanent president and CEO of Planned Parenthood.

In 2009, she co-founded the Perception Institute (formerly known as the American Values Institute), a research group studying bias reduction and discrimination, and was their executive director. She co-created the curriculum for Starbucks' racial bias training in May 2018.

McGill Johnson taught political science and African-American studies at both Yale and Wesleyan University. She served as political director for Russell Simmons' "Hip-Hop Summit Action Network", and was the executive director of Citizen Change during the 2004 election season, launching their "Vote or Die!" campaign.

In 1993, she graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in political science and a focus in Latin-American social movements. She went on to receive a Master of Arts from Yale University in 1995, also in political science.

McGill Johnson was born in New York City in 1972 and raised by her mother and father. Her mother worked her way up from a secretary to an executive-level position at AT&T. McGill Johnson's childhood was strongly influenced by her parents' pride in black culture.