Leadership

Natalie Madeira Cofield is an accomplished leader and advocate for small business and entrepreneurship. As President & CEO of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), she leads a national organization that strengthens the ecosystem that powers entrepreneurs. Under her leadership, AEO has launched regional councils, advanced innovation and capacity-building across business support organizations, and produced applied research that informs policy and practice. A strategist and convener, Cofield partners with philanthropy, finance, technology, and policymakers to align solutions that help founders start, stabilize, and scale.

Natalie is an award-winning entrepreneur, philanthropist, political appointee, and economic activist with a robust track record of empowering small businesses and underserved communities. She has offered her expertise and strategic insights to prominent CEOs of billion-dollar organizations, senior advisors to the White House, mayors of major cities, and community leaders across the nation. Her contributions have earned her recognition as one of the most powerful women in business by Entrepreneur Magazine. 

Prior to her role at AEO, Natalie served as a presidential appointee at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). As the Assistant Administrator, she was instrumental in managing the deployment of $1.2 trillion in funding during a critical period in economic history, directly supporting the allocation of over $200 million to entrepreneurial ecosystems nationwide. She also spearheaded the Office of Women’s Business Ownership at the SBA, overseeing a $70 million grant-making budget and leading the largest expansion of the Women’s Business Center network in the agency’s history. 

In addition to her governmental service, as an executive, Cofield was named the inaugural Entrepreneur-in-Resident for the District of Columbia, served as an Executive in Residence for Mastercard (advising the Fortune 500 company on go-to-market strategies for small businesses), and was the CEO of the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce, among other notable director and CEO level leadership roles in economic development and small business spanning from Los Angeles to New York.  

Natalie’s expertise is widely recognized, and her insights have been featured in major media outlets such as Inc., The Atlantic, Time, CNN, The New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, among others. She is a sought-after speaker, having presented at esteemed institutions including Harvard, Yale, Brookings, The Aspen Institute, SXSW, Google, Meta, and Dell.  In recognition of her significant contributions to economic development, Natalie was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Shaw University in 2023.

She earned Harvard Business School’s Certificate of Management Excellence (Innovation), an M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania focused on higher education as a catalyst for entrepreneurship, and graduated with honors from Howard University and Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs (National Urban Fellow).

Currently, Natalie serves on the corporate board of directors for Harbor Bankshares Corporation ($345M in holdings) and the Smithsonian Community Museum. An avid traveler, she has explored over 47 countries and continues to broaden her global perspective.