The Exchanges

Q You grew up on a farm and came from a lot of struggle and strife that only entrepreneurs know. Can you tell me about that time?

A Well, it was incredible to grow up on a family farm. And, uh, at the time, you know, I grew up in a house that had no upstairs heating. So we'd wake up in the morning in the winter and, and there would be frost inside the windows. And, but we, we never thought that was anything that, uh, would be different or wrong with that. We just had electric blankets that we slept under, but I saw how hard my family worked and I was inspired by it. I saw my grandmother writing the commodity futures prices on the Formica countertop. And then when my grandfather and dad would come in for lunch, they'd look at the prices and go back out. And that's where I first got my interest in finance and markets. And I saw my mom and dad building, uh, their trucking company together and dealing with the interstate commerce commission filings and the paperwork. And I saw our truck drivers coming over to collect their paychecks while my mom wrote them out and. It really impressed upon me that, wow, they're providing livelihood and they're building something for people that people are coming to us, asking them to haul grain, loads of grain off their farm, not just our farm, but theirs. And, uh, my parents sponsored our, the softball team in our small town, like I saw and what other small businesses did. And so I also saw how the toll it took on my dad, like How hard he worked, you know, 20 hour days plantin…

AI assessment note: “Well, it was incredible to grow up on a family farm.”

Q Yeah. So do you think that you guys, as an administration overall, will small business owners get those permanent tax cuts? Will there be like a pro small business environment? Cause lots of people say they love small business. Um, but do you think that is actually going to happen?

A Well, look, there's no bigger fan of small business than President Trump and this administration, and I do believe we're working quickly toward Congress having that 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act extended, hopefully made permanent. That will provide tremendous certainty for small businesses to invest and grow and hire and drive our main streets. And I believe manufacturers and businesses of All kinds are really spring-loaded, just waiting for that tax cut to come through. But in the meantime, we're working really hard on deregulation because regulation, and in fact, the Biden administration passed 1.7 trillion dollars in regulation, setting an all-time record by many multiples of massive regulation. That's a tax on small business disproportionately on our manufacturers as well.

AI assessment note: “I do believe we're working quickly toward Congress having that 2017 Tax Cuts”

Q Yeah, and so if you're a small business owner listening right now, Like, is there any downside to going to your local SBA office and just saying, hey, I want to see if I could be pre-approved for a loan for X or Y or Z. Like, should every small business owner be at least meeting with their local SBA?

A Absolutely. So we have 68 offices across the United States at the SBA, and what you can do is start having those conversations. Maybe you don't need capital right now, but you need access to some of the counseling that we do through our small business Development companies that really help small businesses build toward accessing capital or planning their expansion. And we can work across the federal government to connect them to other resources that, as you say, capital hiding in plain sight, like, could there be other programs? The SBA also oversees government contracting. We have to ensure that small businesses get about 23% of federal contracts, and we have programs to help them onboard into federal government contracting, which I'll admit is not the easiest thing to navigate in the world, and we're trying at the SBA to demystify that and make sure that it's Really small businesses that are getting that benefit.

AI assessment note: “Absolutely. So we have 68 offices across the United States at the SBA”

Q What do you think your leadership style is? Like, you've been successful in WNBA. You've been successful in a Senate race. You're the administrator of the SBA. You've also run these huge public companies. How do you keep winning?

A Well, I think it's the, you learn from the losses and, and there's more losses than wins, to be honest. When, when you get to this point in life, um, you start looking back and you're saying, I'm, I'm really glad some, for some of those hard times. And some of those hard times were the best times. I think back to when our company was a startup. I mean, today it's a hundred billion dollar fortune, 500 company. But when we had a hundred people and it, and it was working every single weekend without a single day off, Straight through. Get there early. Leave late. Come back over and over. Cancel the vacations. The birthday dinner turns into a due diligence review up in New York. All those things. Those were the best times. I didn't need a birthday dinner. I didn't need the vacation. I mean, these were the things that built the trajectory for success. And so I'm always happy to run into the fire. It's why I was able to start a crypto company in 2017, because I love to see a challenge, and I'm so blessed. My husband, Jeff, was the founder of, of that Fortune 500 company, and he's a visionary who is an engineer, and he takes every problem apart at the nuts and bolts level, and, um, that's kind of how we've worked through a lot of challenges, and, you know, I'm a little, he's, he's a genius. He's brilliant. I'm more of a hard worker. I didn't have the gifts of the intellect that he had…

AI assessment note: “I'm a hard worker. That's my superpower, and I have a deep well of curiosity.”

Q How do you foster dissent in an organization? How do you get people to like competing for the best ideas?

A Well, I think it goes back to the original question you asked me about what kind of leader am I? I'm, I'm a hands-on leader. I, I try to run as flat organizations as we can. Like we're all on the same team. Like the team first concept is we're all in this together. If you fail, I fail. And so I want you to succeed. And that's why I am really careful about the teams I pick and, you know, loyalty is important, but you're being loyal to me if you say, Kelly, I don't think that's a good idea. It's, it's not disloyalty. I don't want to be encircled by yes men. I want people to say what you're doing is, um, maybe not the optimal way to do this. Here's an, have you thought about this? And I may take it on board. I may not, but I'm like, thank you for letting me know. I'm glad we've had this conversation. And, and so I think just really encouraging Communication and dialogue. I feel like someday communication is going to be a lost art within the business world.

AI assessment note: “you're being loyal to me if you say, Kelly, I don't think that's a good idea.”

Q One of the, um, things I was curious about is you and your husband have run multiple businesses together and seem very aligned. Um, what's, what's the secret to doing that?

A Boy, that's a great question. First of all, I'm incredibly blessed. That's, that's the first open secret right there. Well, I, I am so blessed to have met him at a time in my life when, you know, things could have gone either way. I, I thought, you know, I've been moving around the country for 10 years, taking increasingly more responsible jobs, and I thought coming to Atlanta was going to be another stop on that career trajectory to where I was Working to find my fitting. I'd just gotten my, uh, CFA and had worked in private equity, had worked in, uh, as an equity analyst and then was interested in doing investor relations. And I ended up joining the executive leadership team, ultimately working my way up to that. Um, but we both just connected on our Midwestern values, our love of our like families, our work. Our shared passion for, um, improving ourselves and giving back. Like we're both very altruistic, but we're also competitive. So we kind of feed on that and, um, we, I'm just so blessed. We, we get along great. We love talking about business. Um, and we both understand what's important in life and it's, it's not, it's not the monetary. I mean, people make a lot of our, um, wealth or success, but it's something we don't really spend a lot of time talking about.

AI assessment note: “we both just connected on our Midwestern values, our love of our like families”