DéVon Christopher Johnson has built something extraordinary with the BOMESI Summit, transforming it into the premier gathering for forward-thinking entrepreneurs and industry pioneers. As co-founder alongside Rhonesha Byng, Johnson has navigated the complex landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion in business while maintaining the summit’s core mission of developing authentic leaders who balance profitability with purpose.
The 2025 BOMESI Summit in Detroit marked a pivotal moment for the organization, as Johnson and his team successfully adapted to industry challenges including DEI pullbacks and budget constraints that have affected content creators and publishers nationwide. Despite these obstacles, the summit honored distinguished leaders like Brianne Boles-Marshall and Dr. “Grouchy Greg” Watkins, demonstrating the power of authentic leadership and innovative diversity strategies.
Johnson’s approach to building tomorrow’s business leaders extends far beyond conference walls, creating lasting impact through mentorship, community connections, and a commitment to inclusive business practices that refuse to compromise between financial success and meaningful community impact.
What were your expectations coming into this year’s BOMESI Summit?
I expected it to be great. BOMESI only delivers at the best scale we can to deliver to our community. But I did have concerns around the content creators and the publishers who were up against some really tough times because of DEI pullbacks and budget pullbacks and deal flow not being what it was the last four or five years. A lot had got used to the sympathy dollars that we were getting from 2020 until 2023. It’s not just the Trump administration, the budget started changing in 2023. And if you weren’t playing a long game, you were outside with your pants down. So we did what we could to help subsidize the cost of travel for as many publishers as possible. So we had amazing partners that helped us do that.
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What was one of the best things about the conference this year?
The biggest decision we made out of the four times we’ve done this is to have one hotel, one venue. We ended up actually selling that hotel out. We needed a second hotel. It was across the street. The DoubleTree is across the street from The Cambria. We ended up having to get The DoubleTree also. Doing that allowed people to have new friendships, new partnerships, time for meetings. I love seeing people grab time in a hallway or down the hall in the sitting area and have a little meeting. Organic. So I think next year we’re going to make sure we have host hotel and venue, everything all in one place.
Are you coming back to Detroit next year?
Yeah. So a lil birdy can tell you that we’re going to be back in Detroit, back in the D in 2026. Listen, this city has a lot to offer and we’re just now making our relationships known in the community and in the city. And we don’t want to just show up and leave, because that’s rude. As we’re meeting more local people from Detroit, we want to make sure we’re including Detroit and the rich history Detroit has in the conference.
What are three takeaways from this year’s event?
Three takeaways. One is know your audience, know your value prop. What are you delivering to the marketplace that doesn’t exist or you do it better? And the value of community connections, because even when times are bad, you need someone or some group or some people to lean on to either not be alone in it or make you laugh about it.
