Rita Johnson, VP

Rita Johnson is the VP of the Global Women’s Leadership Forum™.

Rita spent 25 years with McDonald’s Corporation where she began as a restaurant management trainee and worked her way up through the organization. In her last role, she had responsibility for designing and facilitating leadership development programs that targeted high - potential candidates for executive level positions in Europe and North America. 
Prior to this role, Ms. Johnson provided Human Resources generalist expertise to leadership teams in several US regional field offices and was the Human Resources Officer for Europe for 12 years, traveling back and forth between Chicago and European cities.

In her role as Chair of the McDonald’s Women’s Leadership Network, Ms. Johnson met Maureen O’Brien, and they collaborated on building the Global Women’s Leadership Forum™ as a dynamic way to meet the needs of executives charged with leading women’s initiatives and networks within Fortune 500 companies.

Rita is also involved with charitable and non-profit organizations, where she provides experience and expertise in developing future leaders through coaching and leadership development programs.

Rita and her husband Jim live on a horse ranch in southern Arizona. Their son Michael attends Northern Illinois University.