Supporting Detroit Minority Businesses:
Access to Capital—Survey Results

Joseph B. Anderson Jr. was born in Topeka, Kansas, and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a Bachelor of Science in math and engineering. He subsequently received two master’s degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. In May 2016, Anderson received the Distinguished Graduate Award from the United States Military Academy at West Point, honoring him for his lifetime of achievement.

During his military career, Anderson commanded troops as an infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and served two tours of duty with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam. Anderson and the infantry platoon he commanded in Vietnam were subjects of a highly acclaimed documentary film called The Anderson Platoon.

Anderson is currently the majority owner, chairman, and CEO of TAG Holdings, LLC, which owns several manufacturing service and technology-based entities based in North America. These businesses have served a variety of industries, including automotive, heavy equipment, aerospace, and defense.

Anderson serves on the board of directors of Business Leaders for Michigan; board of directors of Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association (MAMA); Wynnchurch Capital Advisory Board of Directors; and Modular Assembly Innovations Board of Managers. He also serves as chairman of the board of directors, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Detroit Branch. His community involvement includes serving as the chairman of the board of trustees, National Recreation Foundation. Anderson has served on the board of directors of several New York Stock Exchange companies. Anderson is a past chairman of the U.S. Department of Commerce Manufacturing Council.

Maude Toussaint-Comeau is a senior economist and economic advisor in the Community Development and Policy Studies division of the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Her work has consisted of identifying public policy concerns, conducting applied policy-oriented research, and supporting the Bank’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) process. She has also spearheaded a number of outreach and research initiatives to inform policy and promote revitalization on the South and West Sides of Chicago, in Detroit, and in other minority neighborhoods in the Seventh District. Her current research and publications are on banking infrastructure in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods; minority depository institutions; and capitalization of Community Development Financial Institutions.

Toussaint-Comeau is engaged in several professional services activities. She is currently the elected nonacademic director on the board of Western Economic Association International. She is serving as the guest editor and a contributing author for a special issue of the journal Contemporary Economic Policy on the economics of the middle class. She is also serving as a research advisor committee member for the 2020 ALICE reports for the states of Indiana and Illinois. In the past, she served as an economic advisor for the Council of Economic Advisors to the New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan and as a co-chair of a business development committee and a catalyst committee member for the Greater Chatham Initiative.

Toussaint-Comeau received a 2017 Presidential Award from the Chicago Fed for research and initiatives to uplift minority businesses and revitalization of low-income neighborhoods. She is also the recipient of the 2017 Visionary Award from Chicago United for research projects on diversity in senior leadership and corporate inclusion.

Toussaint-Comeau holds a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Kenneth L. Harris, born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, is known for addressing societal and economic challenges within the urban community. Harris serves as the 12th president/CEO of the National Business League, Inc., founded by Dr. Booker T. Washington in 1900, a 120-year-old organization with access to 2.9 million Black-owned businesses in the United States.

Harris received the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA) 2007 Minority Business Advocate of the Year award, and was named among Crain’s Detroit Business’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2007 and Who’s Who in Black Detroit’s Most Influential. Harris was honored by the Michigan Women's Marketplace and CEED as the 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year and received the 2008 Excellence Award for Economic Empowerment by 100 Black Men of Greater Detroit, Inc. Harris also accepted the 2009 CBS-WWJ 950 Emerging Leader Under 40 Award for Black History Month, as well as the 2010 Michigan FrontPage’s 30 in Their 30s award. Harris was chosen DBusiness Magazine’s 30 in Their 30s Most Influential and featured in Ebony magazine in 2011. He was featured in the 2012 Aetna African American Black History Calendar America’s Most Influential and received the 2012 Men of Excellence Award from the Michigan Chronicle newspaper. Additionally, he has been named by the 2013 New York-based Counselors International as one of the “40 Under 40” top economic development professionals in the United States. Harris was featured in the 2014 CBS TV 62 and WWJ 950 Black History Month Distinguished Leader Showcase. He received the 2015 Comerica Bank Community Partnership Award, 2017 National Veterans Supplier Diversity Council Leadership Award, and 2018 and 2019 DBusiness Magazine’s Most Influential Business Executives in Metro-Detroit.

Harris received his doctorate of philosophy (PhD) with a combined specialization in entrepreneurship, economics, and African American and African studies from Michigan State University.

As part of the recently announced partnership between Invest Detroit, New Economy Initiative (NEI), and the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Paul Jones was hired as the business support network director to advance the partnership’s mission to strengthen an inclusive small business support network of nonprofit business organizations (BSOs) in Detroit, Hamtramck, Highland Park, and other Wayne County communities.

The role establishes an office inside Invest Detroit that will lead and manage the stewardship and coordination of the BSO network—a group of local nonprofits and financial institutions dedicated to providing comprehensive and inclusive small business support. As business support network director, Jones will serve as a convener, identify needs or support gaps in existing programs, mobilize the network for quick execution, and engage with business owners to ensure the network of support is known and relevant to their needs. NEI and the Community Foundation will continue as the grantmaker, and Jones and Invest Detroit will work with NEI leadership to ensure the BSOs and the small businesses they serve are equipped to meet their needs.

Most recently, Jones, a native Detroiter, served as the executive director of the Detroit site of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. In this role, he focused on identifying, attracting, and organizing community resources to support the program’s small business scholar and alumni base. Prior to Goldman Sachs, he founded TIVA Capital Advisors, a virtual CFO company that focuses on data analytics, financial literacy, and value extraction. Jones was also the co-founder and CEO of IPX EG International, a telecom company headquartered in West Africa, which under his leadership grew from a startup to $20 million in annual revenue with over 100 employees.

Margaret Ference is a senior vice president and the business banking credit, SBA, and operations director for Huntington National Bank, a $100 billion dollar regional bank based out of Columbus, Ohio. With a background in financial underwriting, commercial closing and due diligence, and SBA program eligibility, Ference has built a career specializing in business lending and is very active as a small business advocate in the communities that Huntington serves.

Ference is currently serving as the bank’s business credit and operations director, overseeing a team of 300-plus colleagues across nine states, with a focus on making and servicing loans to companies from $5,000 to $10 million in size throughout the entire small business life cycle. By working with start-ups on business plans, helping small businesses expand into commercial companies, finding aging owners a generational solution for the sale of their business, and even helping those customers who fall on hard times, she demonstrates her passion for finding small business lending solutions. As the director of the SBA lending program at Huntington, Ference is pleased to celebrate that for the 12th consecutive year, Huntington is the top SBA 7(a) lender in its now eight-state region and that for the third year in a row, it was first in the number of SBA loans made nationally for 2020.

As a member of NAGGL and several small business associations, Ference works closely with private and public segment leaders nationwide to communicate Huntington’s mission for small business. She is the business representative on the bank’s ESG (environmental, social, and governance) board, focusing on Huntington’s impact on our customers, colleagues, and community. She is also a member of Huntington’s National Community Advisory Council, where she works with community leaders across the Midwest to drive bank policies, procedures, and philanthropy to better support the ever-changing neighborhoods where the bank’s branches are based. Ference is on Huntington’s Women for Women Leadership team, which is focused on promoting women in the financial industry. Ference earned her BSBA degree from Ohio Dominican University and is a graduate of the CBA Executive School of Banking at Furman University, South Carolina.