Phoenix entrepreneur Jenny Poon will be shaping national policy for women-led small businesses as a newly-appointed board member for the National Women’s Business Council.
Poon, founder of coworking space Co+Hoots and HUUB, a digital platform that connects small businesses with government resources, will be headed to Washington, D.C., in February for the council’s first public meeting of 2023, she said.
“I’m excited to be able to share and have a voice in policies going forward for a lot of businesses that I’ve spoken to and work with," she told AZ Inno. "I feel like I have a wide perspective on challenges that women business owners face right now and I’m excited to bring their voices forward as part of the council.”
Poon was appointed to the Council board in October and is the only member from Arizona. She will be serving a three-year term.
The National Women’s Business Council is a federal advisory committee within the U.S. Small Business Administration consisting of 15 prominent women business owners and organization leaders. It provides advice and policy recommendations to the president, Congress and SBA’s administrator on issues of importance for women business owners.
“A big piece that I’m going to focus on is access to capital and funding for women business owners,” Poon said. “We already know there’s a discrepancy between women and their male counterparts and who gets funding and who doesn’t.”
Poon also aims to create an equitable ecosystem for underrepresented communities by examining whether there’s potentially different methods to value businesses and their ability to pay back a loan or qualify for capital, she said.
Poon added that it’s important to provide support to women-led businesses and their role in revitalizing communities.
“Historically, women have been left out of the conversation and the way our entrepreneurial communities have often been built have not included the perspective of women,” she said. “I’m grateful and honored to be shaping that in the future for women entrepreneurs in our country.”
In 2010, Poon founded Co+Hoots with Odeen Domingo in downtown Phoenix in response to the Great Recession and a need for an innovation hub for entrepreneurs. Since then, Co+Hoots has expanded to two Valley locations, which serve more than 1,000 entrepreneurs a month.
Poon in 2020 launched HUUB, which has assisted more than 3,000 small business owners in six Arizona cities to retain and hire employees. AZ Inno named HUUB a startup to watch in 2022.
Poon, who serves as an adviser for several startups and mentor for young entrepreneurs, was a recipient of the Innovation Award sponsored by Pacific Premier Bank at the Phoenix Business Journal’s 2022 Small Business Awards.
“Jenny Poon is pushing to make the American dream an American reality for women business owners,” Tené Dolphin, executive director of the National Women’s Business Council, said in a statement. “She is committed to lowering barriers and elevating opportunities to create an equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem for women looking to start and scale their businesses. We are proud to have Jenny joining our council working to ensure women in business have a seat at the table and a voice in the conversation.”
