ICYMI: CBA President and CEO Lindsey Johnson Sits Down with SBA Deputy Administrator Bill Briggs to Discuss SBA’s Role in Supporting Small Businesses

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In celebration of Small Business Month 2026, Consumer Bankers Association (CBA) President and CEO Lindsey Johnson sat down with Small Business Administration (SBA) Deputy Administrator Bill Briggs to highlight SBA's role in supporting small businesses through pro-growth policies from the Trump Administration that enable entrepreneurs to achieve the American dream and how America's leading retail banks that CBA represents support SBA's mission.

What They're Saying

Key excerpts from Deputy Administrator Brigg's conversation with Johnson are below.

On the Trump Administration's goals for SBA to collaborate with the nation's banks:

• "Everything we're trying to do is to help the small business owner […] run a small business profitably and succeed […] and also provide access to capital, which SBA is really well known for. We're really grateful for our partner banks who are a part of that. We don't make the loans, the lenders do."

On SBA's pro-growth and pro-business policies:

• "We've really been focused on lowering the regulatory burden […] Also tax cuts, a lot of those tax cuts - were talking to small businesses about the 20 percent permanent deduction […] All of those provisions benefit and encourage small business to invest and grow and work with their lenders."

On what advice to share with new small business owners:

• "The first thing I would say to someone who's interested in starting their own small business is to work with a counseling partner to plan out that business intelligently, but also to use technology. I think an AI-first business - leveraging it and putting that in your business is a smart move and only going to make you more attractive to capital providers."

Dive Deeper

To watch clips from Deputy Administrator Briggs and Johnson's conversation, click HERE, HERE, and HERE.