ABOUT US

The SCORE Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization that serves as the philanthropic arm of SCORE, America’s premier source of free and confidential business advice to entrepreneurs and small business owners.

The Foundation facilitates individual contributions and corporate sponsorships that enable SCORE to expand the reach and enhance the success rate of our small business community through free mentors, tools, resources, workshops and educational programs.

SCORE held

278,783
mentoring sessions in 2022

Leadership

Message from the President

Liz Sara

Liz Sara

President, SCORE Foundation

We are grateful to the many corporate and individual gift donors for the financial support they bring to the SCORE Foundation. Those dollars allow SCORE to help entrepreneurs to start, operate and grow their small business, overcoming the challenges they face along the way.

For decades, SCORE has played an active role in fostering small businesses across the country through a volunteer network which today numbers 10,000 expert executives. They provide free advice and mentoring at the local level. In addition, national educational programs and tools are developed each year to help those founders take their company to the next level. The financial contributions drive the program creation and delivery – as well as the people that implement them – to reach both new and ongoing small business founders. Those companies bring the vibrancy and variety to the neighborhoods in which we choose to live and work. We need them.

As an entrepreneur and former small business owner throughout my career, I know the value of having trusted advisors just a phone call away. I invite you to join us in supporting America’s entrepreneurial spirit through your gift to the SCORE Foundation. And by patronizing those small businesses in your community.

Small businesses drive the economy.

There were 32.5 million small businesses in the U.S. in 2021, employing 46.8 percent of all employees.

SBA

Fireside Chat. Women business leaders share small business mission.

Our Board Members believe deeply in SCORE’s mission and are active ambassadors within their diverse nationwide business networks and local communities to advance the Foundation’s purposeful philanthropic work.

Pat Loftus,

Past Board Chair

Board of Directors

Scott Harkins

Scott Harkins

Chairman of the Board

SVP Marketing, FedEX

Scott Harkins leads the Global Portfolio Marketing for FedEx Services and oversees global digital; global customer segment and experience design; global products, solutions, and business agility, and global marketing foundations talent development program. He is responsible for the creation and execution of global marketing programs, including digital transformation, e-commerce, and global products and business agility. Before his current role, Scott served as the vice president of strategy and product management, director of FedEx Kinko’s marketing, and director of segment and alliances marketing. He joined FedEx in 1992 in the pricing department. Scott earned his Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Notre Dame and his master of science in management from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Payton Iheme

Payton Iheme

Board Director

VP Public Policy, Bumble Inc.

Payton Iheme is an accomplished public policy leader with over 20 years of experience in the field. She currently is the Head of Public Policy for North America and South America for Bumble Inc. At Bumble, she lends her expertise to focus on issues overlapping with community building, online safety, diversity and equity, data privacy, the digital economy, small business, and public/private partnerships.

Prior to joining Bumble, Iheme led aspects of public policy outreach at Meta and also served as the Senior Policy Advisor for Communication Technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for the Obama Administration. She has also held various roles in the Dept. of Defense, the State Department, and in Congress as a legislative liaison with specialization in defense, intelligence, humanitarian assistance, and special access programs for Members on the Senate Intelligence, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations Committees. She is also a proud military officer/veteran and continues to serve. She is based in the Washington, DC area.

Scott Stearsman

Scott Stearsman

Board Director

SVP Small Business Banking, Truist

Scott Stearsman serves as Head of Small Business Banking for Truist Financial Corporation. In this role he is responsible for overseeing the small business banking segment and delivering financial solutions and expertise to small business owners and entrepreneurs. He has over 20 years of banking experience serving consumer and small business clients.

Beth Wood

Beth Wood

Board Director

CMO, Principal Financial

With two decades as a staunch consumer advocate, I have enjoyed great success as a brand, marketing and customer experience professional, team leader and agent of change. I’ve worked in both B2B and B2C models across consumer packaged goods, health and beauty, retail and financial services. The most inspiring work I’ve led includes building humanity into brands, leveraging voice of customer insights and connecting to and through consumer and market tensions. My passions are best served through transformations, leveraging the superpowers of the brand and reimagining its value to its stakeholders and the world. This requires deep human insight, a strong data, analytics and technology foundation, and a team motivated to deliver impact. Through my connected and direct leadership style, my teams have re-imagined storied processes and redrawn experiences to eliminate friction and reduce customer effort. We’ve refreshed windows of collaboration across teams to deliver superior execution and connect customer outcomes to financial outcomes. I am intensely dedicated to bringing out the best a team has to offer by establishing clear purpose, a grounded strategy and embracing the autonomy necessary to deliver exceptional execution.

Alonzo Barber

Alonzo Barber

Board Director

Assoc. General Counsel, Microsoft

Alonzo Barber serves as associate general counsel at Microsoft. In this role, he supports strategic business-to-business partnerships and sales for the U.S. Enterprise Commercial team.   Before joining Microsoft in 2013, he served as senior counsel at Viacom/BET Networks in Washington, DC for nine years.  After graduating from the Naval Academy, he spent seven years serving as a submarine officer in the Navy.

His interest in propelling small business success includes service on numerous boards including chairing the Calvert County, Maryland Economic Development Commission.

Megan Malone

Megan Malone

Board Director

Sr. Director, VISA

Megan Malone serves as senior director with the U.S. Government Engagement team at VISA. In this capacity, she leads and shapes the company’s small business policy priorities to support small and medium-size enterprises. She has extensive experience working with Congress and the Administration on small business issues and in developing coalitions that support common policy objectives.

She previously served as senior legislative advisor at Venable LLP for 10 years. Among her many personal support activities for small businesses is serving as board vice chair for Black Girl Ventures.

Gale Murray

Gale Murray

Board Secretary

Former Publisher,
The Boston Business Journal

Gale Murray lives in Massachusetts where she retired from American City Business Journals in June of 2020. While at ACBJ, Gale held several senior leadership roles including Vice President of The Business Journals and Publisher of The Boston Business Journal. Gale’s experience in sales and management includes strategic business planning, relationship management, marketing and new business development.

Gale has been a strong advocate and closely aligned with the needs and goals of small business and entrepreneurs as a champion of ACBJ’s reporting, research, events and mentoring opportunities for business leaders of all sizes but especially focused on opening doors for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Gale holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and business administration from Purdue University and spent 25 years in publishing at Dow Jones prior to ACBJ. She’s also a member of the International Women’s Forum of Massachusetts (formally Massachusetts Women’s Forum), a board member and mentor at Junior Achievement of Northern New England, as well as a board member of Special Olympics of Massachusetts.

John McCloskey

John McCloskey

Board Director

Former Pres. & CEO,
The Aerospace Group

John McCloskey has volunteered with SCORE for 10 years serving as Chapter Chair and District Director for North Carolina. For 17 years, McCloskey was a member of the management Boards of publicly traded German Corporations FAG Bearings and Schaeffler AG. He was also President and CEO of the Aerospace Group, the largest manufacturer of jet engine bearings and structures in the world.

Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President of North American Operations for GKN Automotive. He has a B.S. Engineering, an MBA and completed post graduate work at Harvard, London Business School and IMI Geneva.

Julie Christiansen

Julie Christiansen

Board Vice Chair

Julie Christiansen, chief commercial officer at Cosway Company in Los Angeles, has extensive experience in the contract manufacturing industry.  Her passion for entrepreneurs involves mentoring them in their journey to bring their brand vision to life.  She further supports small businesses through participation in her local Main Street Association and through her role on a variety of boards that are focused on private business ownership, including the Independent Beauty Association.

Judy Trevino

Judy Trevino

Board Treasurer

Judy Trevino has extensive management and board experience in nonprofit, governmental and foundation institutions. She currently oversees multiple nonprofit organizations sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, an international nonprofit organization. Her passion for service has allowed her the opportunity to lead strategic and board succession planning, board governance training, executive and board recruitment, and financial board oversight.

The “friendraising” and financial support provided by the Foundation Board expands the depth and delivery of the programs that SCORE so effectively delivers to small business owners nationwide.

Edgar Collado,

Past Board Member

90%of companies in business remained
in business at the end of 2022

55%SCORE clients with
increased revenue in 2022