Meet Raj George
| Founding Director
Cal State East Bay Small Business Development Center |
Net Impact member Raj George knows about big business, and he’s using it to help out the little guy.
As the founding Director of the Cal State East Bay Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Raj provides small business owners with the big business tools and training they need to successfully grow their business and contribute to economic development within their community.
“We let small business owners know that they benefit the community. We give them the chance to see what works for larger companies and teach them how to incorporate those ideas into their own models."
And if community building wasn’t enough, he helps them do so in a sustainable way.
Inspired in part by the 2005 Net Impact Conference, Raj initiated and planned a day-long sustainability conference for small business owners. The event represents one of the first of its kind among SBDCs throughout the country, and Raj is hoping that the May 1, 2006 event will inspire other SBDCs to raise issues like sustainability with their clients.
Raj began his career in New York City after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995 with a BA in international relations. There he joined Livet Reichard Company, an arts management and marketing firm. Two years later he founded and directed a six-person marketing consulting company dedicated to developing innovative marketing strategies for art and entertainment programming. Then, after nearly four years working for nonprofits, Raj joined Medsite.com as a Senior Marketing Analyst where he led a team in developing e-commerce marketing strategies, negotiated partnerships and managed strategic marketing relationships with major healthcare organizations.
Raj enrolled in Columbia Business School in 1999, which is where he first learned about Net Impact. Upon graduation, Raj began working at US Concepts Inc. as a Project Manager for Johnnie Walker brand scotch whiskey. Although quite a departure from the nonprofit industry, Raj today credits that experience with building skills for his current position: “I definitely have been able to apply branding skills acquired at Johnnie Walker to my current organization. By giving marketing materials and the website a consistent look and feel, we’ve add credibility and branding that are really important for our positioning in the small business community.”
In 2003, after nearly nine years in New York City, Raj ventured west to San Francisco where he was offered the opportunity to run the SBDC, a new partnership between Cal State East Bay, the Northern California Small Business Development Center Network and the U. S. Small Business Administration.
“The offer to start a program from scratch was interesting to me regardless of the structure, but the idea of building a program which involved community, corporate partners, small businesses, universities, and the government was extremely appealing. The concept of combining so many different elements, the kinds of services the program offered, and the partners involved seemed like an interesting way to do something for the community. I couldn’t pass it up.”
In the last three years Raj has recruited a staff of over 25 employees and consultants, launched a website, developed an advisory board, managed fundraising, formed partnerships with companies such as Wells Fargo, Sprint/Nextel and ChevronTexaco, and offered training and consulting to over 6,000 small businesses. In the spring of 2004, he launched classes and plans on holding 120 this year, but his crowning achievement is the SBDC Economic Summit which brings large corporations, like Gap Inc., and small business owners together to discuss ideas and create strategies.
This year’s summit kicked off with a day entitled Green and Competitive:
Entrepreneurship, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility. Four days with more traditional small business workshops followed.
“After talking to small business owners, we saw that they were taking accountability and sustainability seriously. We found that their strategies not only had an impact on their community and the environment, but also an impact on economic development. It’s not just large corporations that make a difference; small businesses are the engines of economic growth and if they can adopt sustainable strategies then they can make a global impact on wider social concerns.”
Falling in line with these issues, it was through the SBDC that Raj once again came into contact with Net Impact. He participated in the 2005 Net Impact Conference as an exhibitor, but his involvement didn’t stop there. He took advantage of local activities with the Bay Area professional chapter and a year and a half later, he’s still fostering those relationships.
“I made a lot of contacts through Net Impact; from partners, to speakers, to consultants. Net Impact members are interested in socially responsible business and are likeminded in wanting to work with diverse groups. Net Impact is great because we’ve met so many people who support what we do.”
A number of Net Impact staff, Board, and members were there to support Raj on May 1 for an outstanding event. To read more about the event, click here.
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