Johnathan Holifield

Johnathan M. Holifield is Senior Vice President for New Economies at Bitwise Industries, leading the venture-backed, tech training company’s expansion into underestimated cities across the U.S. He is a senior executive with 20+ years of diverse local and federal government and private sector experience and expertise in strategy formation and execution, effectively translating concepts into presidential policy, federal law, and organizational and local development plans.

Johnathan served as executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). A Non-career Senior Executive Service appointee, he directly advised the President, Secretary of Education and Executive Office of the President, leading a presidential interagency policy coordinating committee and chairing a federal interagency group of 34 agencies. He helped deliver the largest ever federal HBCU investment of $2.5B, enshrined decades of presidential executive orders into new federal legislation, and produced the first, government-wide competitiveness strategy.

In addition to achieving landmark government and education reforms, Johnathan also led formation of $40M venture capital fund, enabling $250M network of early-stage risk capital, and designed community benefits for $1.4B of development projects. He co-founded ScaleUp Partners LLC, an economic competitiveness consultancy, and authored the groundbreaking book, The Future Economy and Inclusive Competitiveness, a seminal treatise for the first-time linking inclusion and American competitiveness.

A national competitiveness leader, the Ohio governor appointed Johnathan to the Midwest Governors’ Association Investments for the Knowledge-based Economy Project, where he co-chaired the Increasing Research Capacity team, and to the Ohio House and Senate Joint Commission on High-Tech Business, resulting in $1.6B state investment. Earlier in his career, Johnathan was a member of the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals.