Appointed by President Barack Obama, Karen G. Mills is the 23rd administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Her responsibilities include helping small-business owners and entrepreneurs secure financing, technical assistance, training and federal contracts.
Mills has been an active hands-on investor and successful manager of small businesses since 1983. She has also been an advocate for small-business policy that encourages innovation, economic development and job creation.
Before her position at SBA, Mills was president of MMP Group, where she invested in and took a leading role in companies involved in the consumer products, food, distribution, textile and industrial components sectors. Prior to MMP Group, she was co-founder and managing director of Solera Capital.
Mills spent most of her career working with small manufacturing firms, including producers of hardwood flooring, refrigerator motors and plastic injection molding. Her background also includes consulting domestically as well as internationally for the management-consulting firm McKinsey and Co. and product management for General Foods.
In 2007, Maine Gov. John Baldacci appointed Mills as chair of the state’s Council on Competitiveness and the Economy. In addition, Mills served on the Governor’s Council for the Redevelopment of the Brunswick Naval Air Station.
Mills also wrote a Brookings Institution paper on the federal role in regional economic development clusters–geographic concentrations of interconnected businesses that share knowledge and resources to spur innovation, economic growth and higher wage employment.
She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has been vice chairman of the Harvard Overseers. Mills earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a master’s degree from Harvard Business School.