Isabella Casillas Guzman: 27th SBA Administrator

Institution · office: SBA · Office of the Administrator · Type: political (Senate-confirmed, presidential appointee)
Tenure (relief-relevant): Confirmed by the Senate 81–17 on March 16, 2021; served until the change of administration in January 2025.

In the archive

Isabella ("Isabel") Casillas Guzman ran the Small Business Administration from March 2021 to January 2025, the years in which its pandemic loans were forgiven, audited and litigated.¹ Her agency's Inspector General estimated in June 2023 that SBA had paid out more than $200 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-EIDL and PPP money; SBA's reply put the body of likely fraudulent loans at about $36 billion.²

The job

The Administrator is a presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate, paid at Executive Schedule Level II. That rate was $199,300 in 2021, with about $183,100 payable under that year's pay freeze, and $225,700 by 2025.³⁴ She directed every SBA program office and signed the agency's rules and Agency Financial Report. That made her the accountable official for PPP forgiveness, the COVID-19 EIDL wind-down, the new Restaurant Revitalization Fund, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant and the fraud-recovery effort.¹⁵ She served at the pleasure of the President.

Before SBA

She served in the Obama administration at SBA as a Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff, where, per SBA, she "oversaw the SBA's adoption of improved policies, technology, and program initiatives." Immediately before her 2021 appointment she was Director of California's Office of the Small Business Advocate (CalOSBA), serving the state's roughly four million small businesses.¹ Her education is not stated in the SBA confirmation release; a LegiStorm biography lists a Wharton degree.

Confirmation

President Biden nominated her to succeed Jovita Carranza; Tami Perriello was acting Administrator from January 20, 2021 until Guzman was sworn in. The Senate confirmed her 81–17 on March 16, 2021, and SBA framed the job as being "a lifeline for small businesses."¹⁶

Pandemic-relief role

She took over a workforce of more than 9,000 and a relief book that already included more than $500 billion of 2020 PPP loans.¹⁷ Her Office of Capital Access was run through most of her tenure by Patrick Kelley; her Office of Disaster Assistance managed COVID-EIDL and SVOG under James Rivera and Barbara E. Carson.

Forgiveness. By August 2022 SBA had processed 10 million PPP forgiveness decisions, about 91% of all loans, worth $743 billion, Kelley testified.⁷

The restaurant fund. On April 27–28, 2021 she announced that registration would open April 30 and applications May 3 for the $28.6 billion fund, with the first 21 days reserved for businesses owned by women, veterans and socially and economically disadvantaged people. On May 5 she announced 186,000-plus applications in the first days.⁸⁹ The fund drew more than 278,000 applications asking for $72.2 billion; all $28.6 billion was awarded by June 30, 2021, about $18 billion of it to the priority groups.⁷

Shuttered venues. The SVOG portal opened April 8, 2021 and was shut the same afternoon; her Inspector General later found that SBA's June 2021 "program refresh" presumed applicants' assertions true and dropped tax-transcript checks for smaller awards.¹⁰ See Matt Stevens, the program's director.

Fraud. In 2022 she created a Fraud Risk Management Board and named a Special Counsel for Enterprise Risk, Kelley told the Senate.⁷ The Inspector General's June 2023 "fraud landscape" report put potentially fraudulent disbursements at more than $136 billion in COVID-EIDL (33 percent of that program) and $64 billion in PPP (8 percent).² SBA's response, printed with the report, said more than 3 million human-led reviews had found about $36 billion likely to be fraudulent, and that the Inspector General would find "the false positive rate is high."² On June 29 the House Small Business Committee invited her to testify alongside Inspector General Hannibal Ware on July 13.¹¹ She did not appear. The committee's July 21 letter called the gap between the two figures a "$164 billion discrepancy" and put 12 questions to her about SBA's review methods.¹² In February 2023 she renamed and reorganized the disaster office as the Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience.¹³

The 7(a) rules. In May 2023, after Kelley resigned, the chairs and ranking members of both small-business committees wrote to her calling the timing "extremely concerning" and asking SBA to pause its 7(a) lending-rule changes. In July House chair Roger Williams asked her for all of Kelley's communications on the rules.¹⁴¹⁵

Lawsuits that bear her name

As Administrator she was the named defendant in the challenges to the restaurant fund's priority period:

Greer's Ranch Cafe v. Guzman (N.D. Tex.): Judge Reed O'Connor granted a temporary restraining order on May 18, 2021; the plaintiffs filed a notice of dismissal the next morning.¹⁶¹⁷
Vitolo v. Guzman: the Sixth Circuit held on May 27, 2021 that the government "cannot" allocate the funds by race and sex and enjoined those criteria for the plaintiffs' application; the case was dismissed by stipulation on August 25, 2021.¹⁸¹⁹
Blessed Cajuns LLC v. Guzman (N.D. Tex.): the plaintiffs moved on May 23, 2021 for a class-wide preliminary injunction against the race and sex preferences.²⁰

These were suits against the agency in her official capacity. More filings are at Vitolo v. Guzman and Greer's Ranch Cafe v. Guzman.

Documents written or signed

Restaurant Revitalization Fund opening announcement, SBA news release 21-33 (April 2021).⁸
RRF initial-results announcement, SBA press release, May 5, 2021.⁹
Named throughout SBA's FY2021 Agency Financial Report as Administrator; her tenure spans the AFR's COVID material-weakness findings on PPP, EIDL, RRF and SVOG.⁵

Since 2025

Guzman left office at the end of the Biden administration in January 2025. She is affiliated with Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).²¹

Documents on this site

Original source documents and archived copies

Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research SIEPR profile, "Isabel Casillas Guzman."
LegiStorm biography, "Isabel Guzman — 27th Administrator of the Small Business Administration" lists Wharton/Universi...
SBA press release, "SBA Administrator Guzman Announces Application Opening for $28.6 Billion Restaurant Revitalizatio...
SBA press release, "Isabella Casillas Guzman Confirmed as 27th SBA Administrator," published March 18–19, 2021 Senate...
SBA press release, "Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman Announces Initial Results of Restaurant Revitalization Fun...
SBA FY2021 Agency Financial Report Administrator's message; COVID material-weakness findings

Tami Perriello — Acting SBA Administrator from January 20, 2021 until Guzman was sworn in.
Reed O'Connor — granted emergency relief in Greer's Ranch Cafe v. Guzman against SBA's Restaurant Revitalization Fund priority process.
Hannibal "Mike" Ware — SBA Inspector General throughout her tenure.
Ben Cardin — Senate Small Business chair for most of her tenure.
Donald Cravins Jr. — first Under Secretary of Commerce for Minority Business Development, whose post-ARP minority-business mandate ran alongside SBA's small-business agenda.

Isabella Casillas Guzman