Meredith West is the Deputy Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. In her capacity on the Committee, Ms. West is responsible for overseeing all program and policy activities concerning the SBA, including lending programs and investment; trade and exports; technical assistance and business counseling; government contracting and procurement; economic development; high growth firms; disaster recovery assistance; women's procurement and business development; veterans entrepreneurship; innovation; and Agency budget, management and oversight. She has served on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship since 2009 in a variety of leadership positions, and she brings over sixteen years of experience to the Hill. Meredith West also brings significant executive branch leadership to her work. She served at the U.S. Small Business Administration as the Assistant Administrator for Policy and Strategic Planning (2007-2009), under the Bush Administration, under Administrator Steve Preston and Acting Administrator Sandy Baruah. Her work at the Small Business Administration included creating a new scorecard for federal contracting agencies, expanding utilization of SBA programs in underserved populations, and enhancing the Agency’s assistance to small businesses seeking to start or grow their exporting operations. Ms. Meredith West was born and raised in Louisiana. She comes from a family of entrepreneurs who continue to run a small business in rural Louisiana. She earned her BA in Political Science from Rhodes College (1997-2001).