Malette Johnson
Malette Johnson is an accomplished entrepreneur, real estate investor, financial educator, and author based in St. Louis, Missouri. She is the founder of MJ Em’Powers Services, a company dedicated to promoting financial literacy and personal empowerment. With over a decade of experience helping individuals and families improve their financial well-being, Malette has built a career around breaking the cycle of scarcity thinking and guiding people toward wealth creation and financial freedom.
Before founding her business, Malette worked as a community health coach, focusing on diabetes prevention, blood pressure self-monitoring, nutrition seminars, and children’s nutrition programs. She began her journey in real estate in 2020, leveraging her expertise to help clients build and manage wealth, while continuing to expand her impact through financial education. Malette combines her professional experience with a passion for teaching, hosting interactive events like “Crates and Cash Flow” for women and family-focused workshops in partnership with banks to encourage early conversations about money and savings.
As an author, Malette has written several books aimed at empowering young readers, including Money Adventures with Mikey & Chase, the Super Savers and Serenity’s Wheels: A Teen’s Guide to Car Ownership and Financial Freedom. Through her writing, workshops, and coaching, she emphasizes the importance of financial literacy from an early age. Malette leads with empathy, compassion, and fun, and her greatest professional accomplishment lies in the lives she has touched, inspiring individuals and families to rewrite their financial stories and embrace a life of abundance.
• Associate's Degree in Applied Science
• St. Louis Community College (2016)
• Ready Readers
• Black Me and Read
• The Sophia Project
• We Power
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to getting out there, putting myself out there, and following my passion, following my dream, and not giving in to fear and that self-doubt. And that's hard. It's about stepping out of my comfort zone. What they say, do something that scares you to death, so that's been my mission. Like, not saying no, I'm like, I'm gonna do it. It scares me, but that's fine, that's how you grow. I say, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've received is to follow what works for you, because we can go out and try to do everything, and then you might start something and realize you don't like that. So just do what feels right for me and not try to follow every norm, but just stick with what's right for me. Because you can be all over the place trying everything. And definitely stick to your boundaries. And what they say, no is a complete sentence. That's my favorite. And we do not have to explain everything, no.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I wouldn't give them advice. Instead, I would ask them a question because I really would like for them to arrive to the answer themselves instead of me giving them the answer. But I would ask them if they remove fear, what would their life look like?
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge in my field right now is just finding your right people, your clients. And also sticking to and sticking with knowing your worth, you know, just set your prices and be okay with that. Yeah, that's what I would say is the biggest challenge, because we might sit and be like, oh, I don't know how people feel about that, but we gotta know our worth.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values that are most important to me in my work and personal life are being true to you and treat people the way you would want to be treated. I lead with empathy and compassion and love. And I would want it to be not just learning, but a great experience. I want people to leave feeling empowered and that they had fun in learning.