Kevin Dietsch/Getty Pictures
President Donald Trump’s Small Enterprise Administration (SBA)’s nominee for administrator, Kelly Loeffler, was voted in 52-46 by the Senate on Feb. 20, making her the top of an administration that sees over $50 billion in loans, catastrophe reduction, surety bonds and different types of funding for small companies.
Loeffler has a big process forward of her as SBA administrator. She carries sentiments round supporting small companies by way of lowered rules, tackling fraud and decreasing the price of operations by way of lowered inflation. She has additionally promised to cut back or get rid of range, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) packages alongside the traces of Trump’s government order focusing on such initiatives within the federal authorities, although the specifics of how this may apply to mortgage administration have but to be seen.
Right here’s what it is best to learn about Trump’s SBA appointee.
Loeffler’s enterprise background
Loeffler holds an MBA from DePaul College and is at present a CFA constitution holder. After graduating, she labored in investor relations for a number of monetary establishments together with Citibank and Crossroads Group, finally touchdown at Intercontinental Alternate as senior vice chairman of investor relations and company communications. In 2018, she served because the CEO of Bakkt, a subsidiary of Intercontinental that offers in cryptocurrency.
Loeffler served as a Republican Senator for Georgia from 2020 to 2021, after being appointed to serve out the remaining time period of resigning Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson and leaving her function at Intercontinental to take action. Throughout this time, she was thought-about the wealthiest member of Senate as a result of her internet price of at the least $800 million.
Guarantees to deal with fraud
Throughout her affirmation listening to earlier than the Senate Small Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Committee, Loeffler promised to “leverage my enterprise expertise to champion America’s entrepreneurs” as SBA administrator.
“We are going to minimize purple tape whereas restoring the accountability and transparency that taxpayers deserve. I’ll crack down on fraud with a zero tolerance coverage whereas shifting SBA’s focus from Washington, D.C., again to Important Avenue throughout America,” Loeffler mentioned in her opening speech.
She tagged inflation as “the primary drawback” small companies are going through, and has claimed she’s going to work with Trump to cut back inflation with the intention to higher help small companies.
Loeffler’s “North Star” of focus, as she referred to as it throughout her affirmation listening to, will likely be to deal with what she alleges are “large fraud” and waste within the SBA that occurred with COVID reduction and catastrophe funds, which have led to a excessive variety of defaults and deficits inside the administration.
“The truth that this company has not been in a position to cross an audit for 4 years is a shame,” Loeffler mentioned.
The SBA has weathered layoffs over the previous month as Trump and Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) lowered the division’s workforce within the identify of effectivity and decreasing prices.
DOGE has additionally gained entry to SBA’s programs for auditing, although the impression of this – and what DOGE will do with the data within the SBA’s fee programs, contracts and in any other case – stays to be seen.
Plans for catastrophe reduction and DEI
Loeffler additionally promised to deal with SBA catastrophe reduction throughout her tenure. The catastrophe reduction mortgage program ran out of funds in October 2024 when North Carolina was nonetheless recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, requiring stopgap funding from Congress with the intention to proceed this system.
She additionally acknowledged that the catastrophe reduction program must react extra swiftly to diasters such because the wildfires in California and Hawaii and Helene in North Carolina.
Loeffler mentioned she plans to take a “metrics-driven” method to dealing with the SBA, and rising effectivity with the intention to cut back wait instances and improve the caseload processing charge.
Echoing Trump’s sentiments and government order that eliminates DEI initiatives and insurance policies from federal operations, Loeffler implied that SBA lending will take the same route, although didn’t emphasize precisely which DEI insurance policies inside the SBA she plans to focus on.
“I believe the easiest way we are able to serve small companies is making SBA lending obtainable to all who qualify, versus selecting winners and losers and pitting Individuals in opposition to each other,” Loeffler mentioned.
