Indianapolis roundtable attracts small-business owners

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Hearing stories of Black business owners was the goal of a roundtable discussion Tuesday morning.

The Small Business Administration put on the event in honor of Black History Month. Business owners had the chance to discuss how they’ve grown their businesses, share the challenges they face, and learn how the independent government agency can help grow their revenues.

Geri Aglipay, the regional administrator for the Great Lakes region of the Small Business Administration, told News 8, “One of the things we’ve seen in the last 10 years is a downtrend of federal agencies across the board giving contracts to small-business owners. We want to reverse that, and, under President (Joe) Biden, we have an ambitious goal to increase federal contracting for small- and minority-business owners so that they can also have a piece of the pie, have a level playing field opportunity.”

More than a half-dozen small-business owners, including Circle City Broadcast owner DuJuan McCoy, participated in the roundtable. Circle City Broadcasting is the parent company of WISH-TV.