U.S. Small Business Administration

Associate Administrator for Capital Access
Washington, DC

Katie Frost serves as the Associate Administrator for the Office of Capital Access at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) where she leads the agency’s lending programs, overseeing a $500+ billion loan asset portfolio across the 7(a), 504, microloan, disaster loan, Paycheck Protection Program, and COVID-EIDL products. 

Mrs. Frost joined the Biden-Harris Administration at SBA in early 2021, working as a Senior Advisor to the Administrator to support implementing SBA’s pandemic programs and loan programs. Prior to joining SBA, Mrs. Frost served in several leadership positions in government operational improvement, data analytics, and management consulting.

Mrs. Frost earned an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she was a Belfer Scholar, and a BA in political science from UCLA. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture Designee

Under Secretary for Rural Development
Washington, DC

Dr. Basil I. Gooden was confirmed by the United State Senate to serve as Under Secretary for Rural Development on Monday, February 26, 2024.

Prior to his confirmation as Under Secretary, Gooden served as Director of State Operations for Rural Development. In this role, he led and supported USDA’s team of 47 Rural Development State Directors who extend USDA’s state-level leadership and help ensure the department’s investments reach all rural communities. From 2016-2018, he served as the 3rd Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Prior to that, Dr. Gooden served as the Virginia State Director for Rural Development at USDA. He has previously held roles as the Chief Deputy Director of the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, as a Cooperative Extension Specialist at Virginia Tech, and as a Farm Service Agency County Committee member. Dr. Gooden holds a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech, a master’s degree in social work from Syracuse University, and a master’s degree in Public Health and a Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, where he and his family still own and operate a cattle farm.

Expertise in Lending in Native Communities Representative

Founding Chief Executive Officer
Native Agriculture Financial Service
Fayetteville, AR

Janie Simms Hipp, J.D, LL.M. currently serves as the founding CEO of the Native Agriculture Financial Service (NAFS), a nonprofit Other Financing Institution within the Farm Credit system of lending institutions. NAFS focuses on meeting the capital access needs of Native farmers, ranchers, fishers, and forest land operators and their rural communities. 

Prior to leading NAFS, she served as the General Counsel of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). She was only the fourth woman in the United States and was the first Native woman to serve as General Counsel at USDA since 1905. She previously served Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack during the Obama-Biden administration as a Senior Advisor and was the founding director of the Office of Tribal Relations at USDA. She also previously served as a National Program Leader at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and a senior official within the Risk Management Agency. 

She was the founding CEO of the Native American Agriculture Fund, the nation’s largest philanthropic organization focusing solely on improving Native food and agriculture and was the founder of the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Ms. Hipp has almost 40 years of experience in agricultural law, having begun her work during the 1980s farm financial crisis. She is a recognized expert in agricultural law and in the intersection of agricultural law and Indian law. She has been honored by University of Arkansas and Oklahoma City University where she received her LL.M. in agriculture and food law, and her J.D., respectively, and by numerous other organizations for her expertise and leadership. She has also been named to the Chickasaw Nation Hall of Fame.

She is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and was raised in a small rural town in southeast Oklahoma; her permanent home is in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

CDFI Representative 

Chief Executive Officer em>
Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund 
Baltimore, MD 

Mark Kaufman is the CEO of the Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund, a place-based Certified CDFI that supports disinvested neighborhoods in Baltimore City. 

Previously, Mark was most recently Executive Vice President at City First Bank, a Certified CDFI with a 30-year history of providing mission-oriented capital in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia, and President of the bank’s non-profit holding company. 

He served as Counselor to the Deputy Treasury Secretary in the Obama Administration with responsibility for domestic finance issues for three years and as Maryland’s Commissioner of Financial Regulation for five years in the wake of the financial crisis. 

In addition to his work in government, Mark has over 15 years of finance experience as an investment banker.  He is a Trustee and Director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, a board member of the Jacob K Javits Foundation and a member of the Affordable Housing Advisory Council of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta.

U.S. Department of Commerce Designee

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Development and Chief Operating Officer
U.S. Economic Development Administration
Washington, District of Columbia

Ben is serving as a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce supporting implementation of Commerce’s infrastructure and other large scale programs.  In this capacity, he is coordinating cross department efforts to ensure successful implementation of these high priority initiatives and serving as the Department’s liaison to the White House Infrastructure Implementation Taskforce.

From June of 2019 through the start of current detail assignment in Ben served as the Census bureau’s chief financial officer.  While at Census, Ben has oversaw efforts to secure and execute FY 2020 appropriations, provide acquisition support to the 2020 Decennial census, and improve the positions of the bureau in the annual financial statement audit.  He implemented process changes and financial changes to ensure alignment of the operations of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer with program operations and the use of financial data to support enterprise business decisions.

Prior to joining the Census Bureau, Ben served as chief of the Commerce Branch at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  At OMB, he worked with the Department of Commerce, Small Business Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and other related agencies to develop and execute the President’s budget. In this capacity, he worked closely with White House policy councils, congressional stakeholders, and leadership at the Department of Commerce to develop and implement policy recommendations through the enactment of legislation, promulgating regulations, or taking administrative actions. In addition, his office at OMB was responsible for carrying out OMB’s statutory responsibilities for spectrum management and advising the director on policy matters related to spectrum and telecommunications.

In his previous role at OMB, Ben served as an advisor to three different OMB directors. His responsibilities included covering macro fiscal issues; working with the House Budget Committee covering science, space, and energy policy; and serving as a budget analyst responsible for national security and criminal justice issues. Ben received a bachelor of arts in public administration from the University of Tennessee and a master’s in public policy from George Washington University.

Financial Institution Representative

Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer 
Local Bank
Hulbert, OK  

Susan Chapman Plumb serves as Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Local Bank headquartered in Hulbert, Oklahoma. Local Bank is a Native-owned CDFI with locations in Hulbert, Tahlequah, Park Hill, Sallisaw and Grove, Oklahoma.

Local Bank was founded in 1907 by a prominent group of Cherokee Nation citizens and purchased by the Chapman family and other Cherokee investors in 1996. Plumb succeeded her father as board chair and CEO in 2017.

Local Bank has grown significantly under Plumb's leadership and is one of the fastest-growing financial institutions in the state. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Plumb is the only female Native American bank owner in the United States. Local Bank is dedicated to serving rural, low-income and minority communities. Unlike larger lending institutions, Local Bank invests 95% of its deposits back into the communities it serves. 

Plumb's lifelong commitment to public service is both professional and personal. She has been in service to the Federal Reserve since 2017 and currently serves on the Federal Reserve Bank's Kansas City Board of Directors. She has served on the boards of Northeastern Health System and the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. She has also been active in public service to the Cherokee Nation for decades. Her past roles include Chairperson of the Cherokee Nation Election Commission and as a board member for the Cherokee National Historical Society and the Cherokee Nation Education Foundation. Plumb was also a delegate to the Cherokee Nation's historic 1999 Constitutional Convention. She is the third in her family to help draft a Cherokee Nation Constitution, following in the footsteps of her father Gary who served on the Cherokee Nation’s 1975 Constitutional Convention and her direct ancestor Hair Conrad, a signer of the 1827 Cherokee Constitution. 

Plumb earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Oklahoma and a juris doctorate from the University of Tulsa, where she received a certificate in American Indian Law. She practiced law for ten years before returning to her banking roots. She and her husband, Loyal Plumb, have four daughters and are the proud grandparents to ten grandchildren. Plumb lives on the upper Illinois River in rural Cherokee County, Oklahoma.

Beverly Bobb is the Chief of Staff to CDFI Fund Director Pravina Raghavan. In this role she works closely with Deputies to assist on implementation of strategic projects, serve as liaison with staff, executives, senior leaders, and the Director regarding employee well-being, project updates, proposals, and planning and handle inquiries, developing action plans, and assisting with preparation and dissemination of communications.

Beverly has over 20 years of managerial experience in community and economic development at both the state and federal government levels. Prior to her current position, Beverly came from Manufacturing Extension Program (MEP) at National Institute of Standards and Technology as the Chief of Staff to their Director. Before joining MEP, Beverly had several roles at Empire State Development, New York State’s economic development agency.

She holds a Master of Business Administration from St. Joseph’s College, with a focus on Organizational Management.

Felicia Young is the Program Manager for the CDFI Fund Cross Program Team. In this role, she leads efforts to provide program management support to CDFI Fund award programs to help meet deadlines and priorities associated with program funding rounds and to facilitate development and implementation of cross program initiatives and process improvements. Prior to joining the CDFI Fund, Felicia managed awards programs, operational programs, strategic planning, and process improvements at multiple federal agencies.