Leadership
John Arensmeyer
Founder and CEO
Prior to launching SBM, John Arensmeyer was Founder & CEO of ACI Interactive where he spent 12 years managing a 35-person company that developed and licensed successful, award-winning, e-commerce products for over 80 national and international clients. Earlier, he was an attorney in New York City and an aide to Mayor Bill Green of Philadelphia. He received his J.D. from Rutgers University and his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Celia Canfield
VP - Outreach & Marketing
Celia Canfield directs SBM’s communications efforts, including research, marketing, PR, and database segmentation. Celia was the Founder and CEO of Tendo Communications in San Francisco, a Web communications company where she has developed content programs for companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Cisco. Previously, she held executive positions with publishing companies. She graduated from Troy State University, completed graduate work in mass communications at the American University of Cairo and attended Jesus College, Oxford University.
Organization’s Objective
America's 25 million small businesses are the backbone of our economy, employing over 50% of the private sector workforce, creating 75% of all net new jobs, and driving two-thirds of all innovation (e.g. 14 times more patents than big business.)
Small businesses have pressing needs that are not being addressed by government at any level -- and in most cases are consistent with a progressive agenda. The most important need is that of comprehensive health care reform to ensure affordable health care for entrepreneurs, their families and their employees. Other key areas where progressive change would enable small business to thrive are tax policy, access to capital and the dissemination of new communication technologies such as universal broadband.
Small businesses are today represented primarily by reflexive, ideologically-driven conservative organizations who use small businesses as a front for regressive political goals such as maintenance of the health care status quo, elimination of the estate tax, reduction in top tax rates and elimination of many progressive regulations [none of which benefit small businesses.] Moreover, progressive advocates consistently miss tremendous opportunities to build broader coalitions that include small businesses, because of a failure to understand their needs.
Using our experience as long-time entrepreneurs and as political advocates to manage the confluence of small business and progressive needs is what nobody else is doing and what we are solving.
Affordable Health Care
