James Alva is the Interim Regional Director for the United States’ Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Centers or SBDC.  James oversees the 9 SBDCs and over 30 satellite offices throughout the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara.  The SBDC is the nation’s largest technical assistance provider to small business owners in the country and with an approximately $8 million budget, the Los Angeles Regional SBDC Network, which James oversees and directs, is the nation’s seventh-largest program and assists over 10,000 small business owners per year. 

James has worked for both large corporations and small businesses and has a long history of working to build public-private partnerships.  His background is primarily in operations management, community affairs, finance and real estate development.  He has worked on several multi-million dollar public real estate and public affairs projects, and he managed the start-up operations for the first Latino-owned bank in California in over 35 years (PROMERICA Bank).  He is committed to economic development and has worked to that end for the following organizations in various capacities: World Bank in Mexico City, JP Morgan in New York on Wall Street, UBS Financial Services in San Francisco, Harrah’s Casino, and now the SBDC.

He currently sits on the Advisory Board for the Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and serves on the Steering Committee for the California Latino Legislative Caucus’s Madrinas Padrinos Leadership Program – a group that organizes leadership development opportunities and networking sessions for young Latino professionals with the support of the California State Legislature.  He is also a mentor for the Puente Program at Long Beach City College and has raised over $400,000 for various philanthropic efforts over the past several years.