Kelsey Ruger, chief product and technology officer of Hello Alice, describes the fintech organization as a “toolbox for entrepreneurs,” providing funding, resources, mentors, and community. He notes, small businesses require special guidance. Ruger says many aspiring small business owners don’t know how to access capital.
“Probably the biggest barrier is just knowing and having access to the networks where these things are at. A lot of times people say, ‘Well, it’s equitable and everyone has the same access and ability to go apply for grants or ability to go to a VC.’ The problem is much of that still remains hidden in a layer where if you don’t have access to that layer, you would never even know who to go talk to.”
Ruger joined WorkingNation’s editor-in-chief Ramona Schindelheim for WorkingNation Overheard at CES 2024 in Las Vegas to share his thoughts on how technology can give entrepreneurs greater access to funding.
Ruger describes a new Hello Alice fintech tool, the Business Health Score. “That gives us the ability to ask some very specific questions of the business to give them a score of where they are health-wise as a business, and we can make better recommendations.”
About Hello Alice, Ruger says, “We target everyone. So, we have a lot of Main Street businesses – hair salons, grocery store, candle makers, as well as tech businesses.”
Ruger notes Hello Alice has awarded nearly $40 million in grants over the last three years and, in the last two years, added credit and loan services.
He says, “I’m actually pretty excited about small businesses. They are the Number One employer in the United States. They also provide us with a lot of innovation. The small businesses are where all of the new ideas are coming from. They are also where we’re seeing a lot of the innovation in how people work. So, I think there’s a lot of opportunity for small businesses. It’s just helping them get past that initial hump.”
Learn more about Hello Alice.
Learn more about CES 2024.
Funding for WorkingNation Overheard at CES 2024 was provided, in part, by Walmart.
© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
