Our story begins with a question:
What if girls and women had the space to heal, the tools to grow, and the freedom to lead without shrinking?
Epitome Company Global was created to answer that question - for the young leader who may not know where to start, or was made to feel like they were not enough. For the girl once called “too much”, or the woman carrying the pressure of outside expectations.
We deliver leadership education grounded in arts, culture, and wellness to advance social change. Through poetry, coaching, and consulting, we use storytelling to help girls and women reclaim their narratives, demonstrate their value, and execute impactful initiatives, which is essential for navigating and transforming today’s leadership spaces.
Your lived experience is data, and your voice is an essential tool. You are the Epitome of power, beauty, and what our world needs.
The Epitome Beauty Fund
Alongside growth through creative expression, we support the reclamation of beauty as a site of Power, Healing, and Visibility.
Meet our Founder
Grace Johnson
Grace Johnson is a leadership educator, media scholar, and creative strategist who believes in the transformative power of storytelling. Her creative journey began in the public library of her hometown, Oak Park, Illinois, where she first discovered that words could be both refuge and rebellion. What started as writing stories for her family soon became a way to process race and gender-based violence and speak back to the world. In high school, she found her voice in a spoken word club, leveraging poetry not only in competitions across Chicago for the world’s largest youth poetry festival, but also as a platform to reclaim her identity and imagine new futures.
With nearly a decade of experience in leadership education, Grace founded Epitome Company Global to offer others what the creative arts gave her: a space to reflect, to be seen, and to lead with intention. Through workshops, coaching, and consulting, she helps individuals and mission-driven teams amplify their voices, cultivate cultural competency, and design initiatives rooted in justice and care.
Outside of Epitome Company Global, Grace co-facilitates one of the nation’s premier leadership fellowships for values-driven changemakers, helping evaluate and select hundreds of candidates across the United States. Her work has been recognized by the Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation, Northwestern University’s Wirtz Center for the Performing and Media Arts, and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., where she serves on the regional leadership team co-coordinating professional events for more than 10,000 members. She holds an M.S. in Leadership for Creative Enterprises from Northwestern University and a B.S. in Media and Cinema Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with certifications in Black Women and Gender Studies, tutoring, and global community organizing. She brings an interdisciplinary, justice-driven lens to every room she enters - and invites others to do the same.
