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| Susan Kuhn
WE Inc. Government Procurement Advisor
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May 7, 2007
Susan Kuhn, Vice President for Entrepreneurial Programs, brings a life-long interest in economic change and business vitality to the National Women's Business Center. As a high school student growing up in 1970s Buffalo, New York, Susan witnessed first-hand that city's perennial struggle to adapt to the decline of its manufacturing base. She became interested in both emerging economic strategies (including decentralization, globalization, and entrepreneurship) as well as the public policy supports that helped communities build strong economies.
After an initial career as a social worker, in which she helped institutionalized teenagers and adults prepare for a better employment and personal future, Ms. Kuhn went to work as a fundraiser with national organizations with a social agenda. As she watched the economic changes of the 1980s, she shifted her career to follow her interest in adaptation to economic change. As a researcher for United Way of America's (UWA) Strategic Institute, Ms. Kuhn monitored and wrote about economic, technology, and political trends and their impact on the corporate and not-for-profit sector. She co-authored UWA's influential What Lies Ahead series of environmental scan reports, which were used widely by corporate as well as nonprofit executives, and The Future World of Work: Trends for the 21st Century. She founded the national newsletter Soundings, a bi-monthly report on trends and their implications for management.
Ms. Kuhn left United Way of America to found Susan M. Kuhn, Inc., a firm she headed for 13 years. The firm provided environmental analysis, program development, strategic planning, and federal contracting services to a wide range of clients, including the Academy for Educational Development, the Advertising Council, The Alliance for Justice, Communities in Schools, Council on Foundations, George Washington University Medical Center, Gifts in Kind International, Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families, Grantmakers for Education, Grantmakers Income Security Task Force, Grantmakers for Education, National Governors' Association, The National Mentoring Partnership, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and United Way of America.
During her time as an entrepreneur, Ms. Kuhn lived the trends she had written about as a researcher, and developed a keen interest in the process of entrepreneurship. She actually was a client of the National Women's Business Center when her business was young, and joined the Center to run its programs as her interests increasingly centered on supporting entrepreneurship.
At the Center, Ms. Kuhn has developed the Procurement Institute, a first-of-its-kind program that provides small federal contractors with a complete and accessible suite of courses and tools to become fully competent and successful government contractors. She has reinvigorated the Center's course offerings, making them relevant to today's small entrepreneur by introducing new courses, such as branding and competitive research, that scale corporate strategy for small firms. Next on the drawing board are courses for small "emerging" companies looking to expand, a start-up course for consultants, and a class to help entrepreneurs envision and plan for the retirement they want.
Susan is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship, small business development, and government contracting.
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