A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Johnny Hackett Jr.’s family moved to Raleigh in 1998, where he graduated from Broughton High School and later attended North Carolina A&T University. Johnny began his career as a Six Sigma Black Belt at Fortune 500 Companies such as Xerox, IBM, BlueCross BlueShield of NC, before walking away from his corporate job in 2011 to pursue entrepreneurship. In 2019, he founded The Black Dollar Corp. His business is now the parent company to #BlackDollarNC, an online directory for Black-owned businesses across NC, Black Friday Market, a retail hub for online businesses, and The Factory, a co-manufacturing facility. Hackett is an active member of the Raleigh community. Hackett was named Triangle Business Journal’s 2021 40 Under 40 Award Recipient and Triangle Tribune’s 2021 Newsmakers of the Year.