Operation HOPE is proud to announce that its Founder, Chairman, and CEO, John Hope Bryant, has been named to the Forbes Self-Made 250 — a landmark list honoring the 250 greatest living self-made Americans, published in celebration of the nation’s semiquincentennial. Chairman Bryant joins a distinguished group of honorees that includes President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, LeBron James, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Dr. Dre, among others.
Forbes developed the Self-Made 250 using a proprietary Self-Made Score — a one-to-ten ranking that measures the obstacles each honoree overcame, their broader impact, and their financial success. In a companion feature spotlighting honorees who once experienced homelessness, Forbes highlighted Mr. Bryant’s personal journey from homelessness at age 18 to leading the largest financial literacy and economic empowerment organization of its kind in the United States.
“This recognition belongs to every person who has ever been told that where they started would determine where they’d end up,” said Mr. Bryant. “My story is the story of millions of Americans who simply needed access, opportunity, and someone who believed in them. That is the mission of Operation HOPE — to make free enterprise work for everyone — and this honor only deepens our commitment to that work.”
The Forbes recognition comes on the heels of Mr. Bryant’s sixth book, Capitalism for All, which debuted as a #1 bestseller in multiple categories on Amazon following its March 31 release. The book has launched a national town hall series — the “Capitalism for All Tour: Rebuilding the American Economic Ladder” — which will travel to communities across the United States from April through September 2026.
The full Forbes Self-Made 250 list can be found here. The companion feature on honorees who rose from homelessness can be found here.
About Operation HOPE, Inc.
Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to “silver rights” with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved — disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through its community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $4.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities — turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. For more information: OperationHOPE.org.
This is sponsored content.
