President & Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
AEO
Natalie Madeira Cofield
President & CEO, Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO)
Natalie Madeira Cofield is an accomplished leader and influential advocate in small business development and entrepreneurship. As the President and CEO of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), Natalie leads the foremost national trade association representing microbusinesses and small enterprises. Under her dynamic leadership, AEO has initiated regional councils, bolstered investments in innovation and capacity-building among business service organizations and pioneered extensive research on the small business ecosystem.
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. Natalie chaired multiple White House Advisory Councils and Taskforces, including the Council on Gender, Council on Equity, and the Council on HBCUs.
In addition to her governmental service, Natalie is the founder of Walker’s Legacy, a national organization that operates in 20 cities and has supported thousands of multicultural women entrepreneurs in securing substantial capital for their businesses. She co-founded the $14 million Coalition to Back Black Business, which provided critical funding to nearly 1,000 Black-owned businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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 a Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce, among other notable director and CEO level leadership roles in economic development and small business.
Natalie’s expertise is widely recognized, and her insights have been featured in major media outlets such as Inc., Time, CNN, The New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Black Enterprise, Essence, and EBONY. 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 is an honors graduate of Howard University and the Baruch School of Public Affairs, where she was a National Urban Fellow. She also earned the distinguished Certificate of Management Excellence from Harvard University with a focus on Innovation.
Currently, Natalie serves on the corporate board of directors for Harbor Bankshares Corporation ($345M in holdings). An avid traveler, she has explored over 47 countries and continues to broaden her global perspective.
