Shining Light on Black Excellence: Leila Johnson

By Sofia Santiago

Leila Johnson’s words of advice to anyone struggling with a busy schedule or with a daunting task ahead were, “Be comfortable, be vulnerable and eat that frog.” 

Johnson, a senior accounting major, explained that she learned the first two parts of that recommendation in middle school and has carried it with her throughout her time at Rider. 

The third part, references a book by Brian Tracy titled “Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.” The book compares a big task that is going to take a lot of effort, to a frog, and suggests that the reader should just do it rather than let it sit until later. Johnson explained that this phrase is something she learned at her internship at Kreischer Miller, a Philadelphia accounting and tax firm where she is currently a busy season tax intern. 

Apart from her internship, Johnson is the treasurer of the women’s club volleyball team, the treasurer of the Asian American Student Association, the president of the Korean pop culture club, the president and founding member of Pulse Dance Crew, Rider’s Korean pop dance cover team and has been working at Saxbys since her sophomore year. Johnson became the student CEO the fall semester of her junior year. 

When asked about how she deals with the pressures of balancing academics and extracurriculars, Johnson stated, “Time management is everything, because I can have 15 million tasks but I still have time in the day. I use Google Calendar, it’s my lifeline.”

A big achievement for Johnson was founding Pulse.

“I think it has been, not to be cheesy, one of the best things that I’ve done in my life. I mean, I’ve done a lot of leadership roles but there’s something really different about starting a club at college, because you see so many people from different backgrounds,” she recounted. “Then, being the person who runs it all, you learn a lot about communication and how people operate, and on top of that, it’s a physical club, so I have to be a dancer as well.”

Before coming to Rider, Johnson had started a K-pop dance team at her high school because of her passion for dance and Korean culture. When she came to Rider and saw the university did not have one, she decided to create the group herself.

“Be your own way maker. Don’t wait for somebody else to do it. A lot of things that I like didn’t exist before,” Johnson said. “I’ve already made a safe space for myself, but then the safe space for myself has turned into a safe space for other people as well. It’s giving me another group of people I know I can rely on.”

She went on to add, “I’ve been a Black and Korean person in areas where not a lot of other people are Black and or Korean. I’m always going to be perceived as a Black woman, first and foremost, so I’ve always been in that culture. It’s something that I live every day. As for being Korean, it’s not an obvious feature about me, and that’s why I sometimes talk about being Korean more.”

Johnson’s experience at Saxbys taught her how to be patient with herself and others, saying, “Such a high capacity leadership role was a testing experience. Even if I was still figuring stuff out, it didn’t change that the cafe still needed to operate.”

Remembering Johnson’s time as the Saxbys SCEO, senior game design major and her coworker and friend, Kay Aponte, said, “She was always willing to help anyone that was in need. She ran a tight ship, but she was very flexible with everyone It’s always so fun to just see her dance and in her element, no matter where we are.”

Keeping her own words of advice in mind, when looking to the future, Johnson hopes to pursue her Certified Public Accountant and Certified Management Accountant licenses, continue to stay in touch with the Korean Cultural Foundation of Philadelphia and teach dance workshops.

Johnson reminisced, “I didn’t think my senior year would come so fast. It’s literally my last semester in school, which makes it so much scarier, because I’m a person who likes to plan ahead.”

This article is part of the Shining Light on Black Excellence series by The Rider News to showcase impactful Black figures on campus in honor of Black History Month.