Underserved

Ja’Ron Smith served in several roles at the White House, including deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy, deputy director for the Office of American Innovation, and director of urban affairs and revitalization for the White House Domestic Policy Council. During that time, his work included leading the legislative effort around criminal justice reform and the First Step Act, authoring executive orders and other impactful initiatives on issues related to safe policing and access to capital for minority-owned businesses. He also served as chief policy strategist for enactment of the Opportunity Zones provision in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Smith was a key negotiator in helping to secure permanent funding for HBCUs under the FUTURE Act. Prior to his post at the White House, he worked for Senator Tim Scott and served on the staff of the House Committee on Financial Services, the Republican Study Committee, the House Republican Conference under then Representative Mike Pence, and the office of Representative J. C. Watts. Smith is the former executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Foundation’s Center for Advancing Opportunity. Ja’Ron is currently a partner at Dentons Global Advisors and Senior Fellow for Right on Crime. He holds a BBA from Howard University, and a Master of Divinity from the Howard School of Divinity. He is a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha.

Chris Pilkerton is a former Cabinet member and head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, serving as both the agency’s acting administrator and general counsel. In these roles, he advocated for America’s millions of small businesses, advanced manufacturing ecosystems, and associated workforce development initiatives for urban and rural areas. He also served as a White House senior policy advisor and the executive director of the White House Opportunity Now initiative, a government-wide program to support economic empowerment for disadvantaged communities working directly with mayors and governors on local economic initiatives. Pilkerton has worked as chief legal and regulatory strategy officer for the nation’s largest nonprofit community development financial institution concentrating on small business support for the underserved, as well as a compliance director at JPMorgan Chase. He began his legal career as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan and went on to become senior counsel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He has been an executive-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School and Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, the associate director of the Law and Public Policy Program at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law (CUA) and a Fulbright Teaching Scholar in Poland. He holds a master’s in public administration from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, a JD from CUA, a BA from Fairfield University, and a certificate in data analytics from Cornell University College of Business.

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