Ms. Karen Gordon Mills - Bio

Ms. Karen Gordon Mills of Brunswick, Maine, is the newly appointed administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. The U.S. Senate confirmed Ms. Mills' nomination April 2. Ms. Mills is in charge of a federal agency with more than 2,000 full-time employees. SBA takes a leading role in helping small business owners and entrepreneurs as they work to gain financing, secure technical assistance and training, and pursue federal contacts. At SBA, Ms. Mills is leading an agency that President Barack Obama has said he feels will play a critical role in the nation's economic recovery. In the past decade, it is estimated that small businesses have created up to 80 percent of the net new jobs across the U.S., and that those businesses hire more than 40 percent of high-tech workers across the country. Ms. Mills has an economics degree from Harvard and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, she formerly served as vice chair of the Harvard Overseers. She has had a 25-year career as an entrepreneur, working in investing and as a leader in companies involved in consumer products, food, distribution, textile and industrial components. Most recently, she was president of MMP Group. In the late 1990s, she was co-founder and managing director of Solera Capital, a firm focused on investing in small businesses owned by women. Ms. Mills also has extensive experience in the international business world, having worked in Europe and the U.S. for the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., and in project management for General Foods. In 2007, Maine Gov. John Baldacci appointed Ms. Mills to serve as chair of the state's Council on Competitiveness and the Economy. She has also maintained close connections with the University of Maine and led the statewide effort that resulted in voter approval of two R&D-related bond referenda in November 2007.

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