Small Business Administrator Isabella Guzman touts agency's focus on entrepreneurs

SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, said her agency is working to become more indispensable to entrepreneurs as the number of small businesses grows.

With 33.2 million small businesses accounting for almost 63% of net new job creation in the nation, the head of the Small Business Administration, who is the highest-ranking Latina in the U.S. government, says the agency's focus has been on ensuring that newly created businesses can stay open.

Isabella Casillas Guzman stepped into the position in the midst of the Covid pandemic, an economic recession and a global supply chain crisis, and those crises determined much of the agency’s focus on helping small businesses navigate the complex landscape.

Owners looking to leverage loans and resources from the SBA created an opportunity for the agency to expand its reach and become more indispensable to people running small businesses, Guzman said in an interview with NBC News on Monday during a New York City trip to mark the SBA's 70th anniversary this week.

Entrepreneurs applied to start a record 5.4 million new small businesses in 2021, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The pattern remained in 2022 with 5.1 million new business applications filed.

So far this year, entrepreneurs have applied to start more than 1.7 million new businesses, Guzman said. All of these are independent businesses with fewer than 500 employees.