Goldman Sachs Foundation President Asahi Pompey: The pandemic gave small businesses a bigger voice

Goldman Sachs Foundation President Asahi Pompey discusses the concerns small businesses are voicing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Video Transcript

ASAHI POMPEY: This conversation is starting to evolve. Dana White, one of our business owners who owns a hair salon, you know, says, look. They put me in a box. I want to scale my business. I want to grow my business. I want to become a national chain. And so the discourse around me in who I am has to really change in order for me to-- in order for me to get the capital. So I think that's one of the key things is really changing the discussion and changing the frame as to how we're seeing small businesses.

The other one is, you know, Black business owners tend to be over-mentored and undercapitalized, and so increasing their capital is another one. Advocacy, I think, is particularly important. And what I mean by that is business owners have to be able to have relationships with policymakers and congressional officials because very often, you know, they're creating the policies that impact small businesses.

And so we've been working through our 10,000 Small Businesses Voices platform to really muscle up our small businesses to be able to meet with congressional officials and tell them here's what's happening on the ground. Here's what I'm seeing. Here's what needs to change in order for me to be able to retool and really make my business pandemic-proof, future-proof, and tech-enabled.