Long before Isabella Casillas Guzman took over at the Small Business Administration in 2021, while the agency was still pumping roughly $1 trillion of emergency aid into the heart of the American economy, she helped out her father as he grew his veterinary hospital in East Los Angeles into a small area chain. After school and during breaks, she checked in customers and their pets at the front desk while her siblings— all of whom became doctors—tended to tasks in the back of the house.
Working among the menagerie of cats, dogs, birds, and the occasional iguana, she marveled at how her father juggled the dueling responsibilities of business owner and practitioner. “That was the experience of a lifetime,” Guzman told Inc. in a recent interview. Watching him “being the veterinarian all day long and then having to manage staff and growth and multiple offices—that framed my interest in making sure that everybody has that opportunity to pursue their American dream.”
Now Guzman, 53, wields the authority as the administrator of the SBA to push that mission into overdrive. The pandemic thrust the Eisenhower-era agency center stage in the role of savior of the world's largest economy, and Guzman is leveraging that momentum to shepherd a series of reforms designed to recast the lender of last resort into something, well, more entrepreneurial. She's especially interested in ensuring that the agency better serve Black and Brown business owners as well as those from low-income neighborhoods—people who tend to be left behind by banks. The underserved.
Given her agency's newfound stature, Guzman says the SBA has not only the opportunity but also the obligation to do something about this inequity. “Our goal is to help support the capital markets so that more small businesses can access the funding they need to grow their business,” she says. “Clearly, based on the data we see, people of color are unable to access traditional capital markets at the same rates.”
In the past year, the agency under Guzman's leadership has announced a series of reforms to spur lending to underserved communities. It is expanding the number and types of institutions allowed to participate in some of its most popular business loan programs, inviting
