Isabel Casillas Guzman is an entrepreneur, government innovation leader, and economic policy expert who has made small business and entrepreneurial development her life’s work.
Isabel served as the 27th Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, earning global recognition for her leadership and stewardship of the agency through the COVID-19 pandemic, economic recovery, and subsequent small business boom. As SBA Administrator, she oversaw a $500 billion portfolio of government-backed financial products and served as the voice of America’s 34 million small businesses in the President's Cabinet. Isabel leveraged the agency’s unprecedented post-pandemic scale to usher in transformational changes at the SBA leading to greater efficiency and impact. She oversaw the most significant regulatory reforms in over four decades and created operational efficiencies and technological advancements across the agency’s flagship capital and contracting programs. Her realignment of the agency catalyzed a record $56 billion in annual SBA financings to small businesses with improved access to emerging entrepreneurs, as well as a marked increase in private lending and investment partners and a strengthened federal government contracting base for the government’s record $255 billion in annual small business spending.
Prior to leading the SBA, Isabel served as California Governor Newsom’s top official on small businesses, and as SBA’s Deputy Chief of Staff during the Obama-Biden Administration.
Isabel joined government after starting, leading and advising firms in the private sector. At a young age, she worked with her father in his chain of veterinary hospitals and continued the family legacy of entrepreneurship. She founded and operated a commercial print production studio, a fine art picture framing studio, and strategic advisory services for federal procurement, government R&D, and commercialization. She also advised founders in financial services, manufacturing, and real estate. Isabel has been engaged in community development serving on nonprofit boards and helping to launch programs to increase civic engagement.
Isabel graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a concentration in Marketing. She currently is a Policy Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and a Business, Government and Society Visiting Fellow at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
