Small Business Advocate Could Head Ex-Im Bank

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Fred Hochberg, a longtime advocate of small business, could head Ex-Im Bank. Ex-Im Bank mission: To finance sales that the private sector considers too risky to fund on its own. Hochberg currently is dean of Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy.

Hochberg has a diverse business background:

• Held top positions at SBA (under Clinton administration).
• Was in direct sales industry positions.
• Spent bulk of his business career at Lillian Vernon Corporation, leading the transition from private enterprise to publicly traded company (president from 1989-1993). It appears he is the son of Lillian Vernon.

Ex-Im Bank has made an effort to emphasize lending to smaller companies -- $3.2 billion of its $14.4 loan authorizations last fiscal year went to finance exports by small firms.

"The SBA must assert itself more aggressively in the area of procurement to ensure that small businesses are receiving a greater share of federal contracts," he wrote in a 2006 op-ed in Inc. magazine.

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