Finance leader Bret Johnsen joins USC’s Board of Trustees

USC alumnus and finance leader Bret Johnsen has been named one of the newest members of the USC Board of Trustees.

The Los Angeles native and chief financial officer of SpaceX joins the board after more than 20 years of financial, tech and corporate leadership experience at companies such as SpaceX, Mindspeed Technologies and Broadcom.

“I’m really appreciative of the opportunity to serve my beloved Trojan Family,” Johnsen said. “Becoming a board member is an opportunity to magnify the impact I can have related to the future of USC, including its students, alumni, faculty and staff.”

“Bret brings great experience in the financial management of technology companies,” said Suzanne Nora Johnson, USC Board of Trustees chair. “In his current role as chief financial officer at SpaceX, he has been at the forefront of developing the next-generation aerospace industry in our country. He has been an active and prolific recruiter of Trojans with accounting, business and engineering degrees to the sector, and he has been a strategic ally in driving USC’s leadership in the space sciences.”

Trojan roots

Johnsen, who earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the USC Leventhal School of Accounting before pursuing a master’s degree in finance from San Diego State University, believes his time at USC made him a more driven individual post-graduation.

“Seeing other members of the Trojan Family and the success that they had really lit the fire in me,” he said. “I feel like you end up graduating from USC as a very confident individual because you’ve got the Trojan Family supporting you and a degree and a capability that allows you to be successful.”

He described his USC career as “some of the most exciting times” of his life, adding that the enduring friendships he made continue to strengthen his ties to the university. “I have always felt a part of the Trojan Family because of how impactful USC has been for me, both from a personal and career perspective,” he said.

Those friends continue to tailgate together — sometimes 30 to 40 people deep — at USC home and away games and see each other on a regular basis.

On an even more personal level, Johnsen’s son and daughter studied accounting and business, respectively, at USC Marshall. Having family members attending the university after him allowed Johnsen to witness USC’s growth and evolution across generations, which only deepened his appreciation for his alma mater.

On the professional side, Johnsen has continued making connections within the Trojan Family his entire career, including hiring “hundreds” of USC alums across the companies that he’s worked at and the departments he has led.

“Honestly, I see hiring USC grads as very low risk,” Johnsen said. “I know that they received a great education because I experienced something similar. And more than anything else, you’re getting someone who has the technical credentials and the critical thinking elements that USC drives.”

Aiming for the moon

For most of his career, Johnsen led organizations focused on semiconductors and software; when he got the call to help lead SpaceX, he doubted he would be a good fit for the role. However, once he realized SpaceX had the same culture of innovation as many of the tech companies he’d led, it was an immediate fit.

Since then, Johnsen has played a crucial role in SpaceX’s development and internal financial operations, and the company has seen rapid expansion during his tenure.

As he looks back at his 14 years with the company, he is amazed at the progress.

“We started from the very beginning with the goal to change mankind and make us a multiplanetary species, and that sounded like such an audacious task when I came in,” Johnsen said. “Now, when people learn about us, they just want to know what year we’re going to Mars, not whether we’re going to Mars. The transformation since I’ve been here has been really exciting to watch.”

Before joining SpaceX in 2011, Johnsen served as chief financial officer of Mindspeed Technologies, a semiconductor company based in Newport Beach. Although he joined the company at the start of the country’s financial market crash of 2008, he said he used the opportunity to work with the chief executive officer to restructure the company, resulting in a 15x increase in valuation during his three-year tenure. Before that, he worked for nearly a decade at Broadcom, where he left as vice president and corporate controller.

Emerging stronger

Johnsen cites USC’s historic move to the Big Ten Conference last year as an example of the university’s ability to be financially savvy and maintain a leadership position in challenging situations to secure the success of its students. As a board member, he hopes to help the university manage the ever-shifting higher education landscape and “come together as a family and community” to emerge stronger.

“When you get to a certain point in your career, you really want to drive impact in the organizations and the missions that are important to you,” Johnsen said. “As I look at myself, I’m first and foremost a family man, but right after that I’m an American, and I’m a Trojan — if I can make an impact in all three of those areas, I certainly want to do that.”