Mills, Karen, 1953-

<p> Karen Gordon Mills (born September 14, 1953) served as the 23rd Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). She was nominated by President-elect Barack Obama on December 19, 2008, confirmed unanimously by the Senate on April 2, 2009, and sworn in on April 6, 2009. During her tenure, her office was elevated to the rank of Cabinet-level officer, expanding her power on policy decisions and granting her inclusion in the President's cabinet meetings. On February 11, 2013, she announced her resignation as Administrator and left the post on September 1, 2013. </p>

<p> Since leaving the SBA, Mills has served as a Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is the president of the investment firm MMP Group, Inc., the vice chairman of the board of directors of the immigration services company Envoy Global, and a regular contributor to Fortune and other publications. She is the author of Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream. </p>

<p> As SBA Administrator, Mills led a team of 3,000 employees whose mission is to help entrepreneurs and small business owners grow and create jobs by providing greater access to capital, counseling, federal contracting opportunities, disaster assistance and more. Among its priorities, the SBA has a portfolio of more than $90 billion in loan guarantees. Each year, the agency helps leverage nearly $100 billion in federal contracts to small businesses and supports free counseling and technical assistance to more than 1 million entrepreneurs. In addition, SBA provides disaster assistance to homeowners, renters, and businesses with the help of 2,000 additional on-call employees. </p>

<p> Throughout her career, Mills has owned, managed, mentored, and invested in small and growing businesses across the country. </p>

<p> As an investor and owner, she helped several small manufacturers improve their competitiveness and ultimately survive the downturn of the early 1990s. This included producers of hardwood flooring, refrigerator motor manufacturers, plastic injection molding companies, and more. More recently, she was President of the MMP Group, which invested and grew businesses in sectors such as consumer products, food, textiles, and industrial components. </p>

<p> In 2007, Maine Gov. John Baldacci appointed Mills to chair the state’s Council on Competitiveness and the Economy, where she focused on attracting investment in rural and regional development initiatives, including a regional economic cluster with Maine’s boatbuilding industry. She also served on the Governor’s Council for the Redevelopment of the Brunswick Naval Air Station. </p>

<p> In her current position, Mills has helped expand access to capital through SBA lending, increase small business’ share of federal contracts, strengthen SBA’s network of more than 14,000 affiliated counselors, and oversee critical disaster assistance operations across the country. </p>

<p> Mills earned an A.B. in economics from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School where she was a Baker Scholar. Additionally, she served as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was vice chairman of the Harvard Overseers. </p>

<p> She and her husband, Barry Mills, president of Bowdoin College, live in Brunswick, Maine. They have three sons. </p>