Left to Right: Roy Lopez (Capital One), Cary Broussard (Business Accelerator Graduate), Alicia Marie (Founder and Managing Director of People Biz, Inc.), Daniel Delehanty (Capital One Senior Director), Elizabeth Naylor (Business Accelerator Graduate), Beverly Johnson (Business Accelerator Graduate)
Capital One hosted a graduation lunch on November 17 to honor 16 businesses who completed the renowned Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence’ Business Accelerator program. The nine-month Business Accelerator program provided intensive business coaching and education designed to help participating businesses grow their revenues by at least 30 percent and create new jobs within 18-36 months.
The graduation lunch included an award ceremony and remarks from the graduates on how the program impacted their businesses. In partnership with Capital One, Count Me In developed the Women Veteran Entrepreneur Corps (WVEC), a training and mentorship program designed to help established women small business owners who are veterans or spouses/domestic partners of veterans fuel the growth of their small businesses and create new jobs for veterans and civilians across the country. To date, Capital One has invested more than $800,000 in the program. Additionally, Capital One recently issued a low-interest loan of $500,000 to PeopleFund to enable lending to veteran owned businesses. Several business owners impacted by this funding will also attended the lunch and celebrated the growth of their businesses.