Our board of directors consists of seasoned business professionals whose experiences inform the direction of Small Business Majority. Each member has cultivated a host of successful business ventures that has equipped him or her with the knowledge and expertise to help guide the organization, provide valuable insight and advise us on our most important decisions.
Celia Canfield
Celia Canfield is a long-time small business owner who recently launched a company called Green Energy Agents. Prior to that, she built a successful custom content creation agency as a co-founder of Tendo Communications, now a 17-employee company. Earlier she held executive positions in high tech publishing at some of the industry's leading publishers and has more than 30 years of print and web publishing experience. Celia has developed communication programs for some of the world’s largest brands.
As a consultant in clean energy and sustainability, she has worked with West Coast Green, Sustainable Life Media and several other media properties and solution providers. Celia is a charter member of Women’s Energy Efficiency Network (WEEnet), and is a member of Efficiency First.
Kenneth Henderson, Esq.
Ken Henderson is a partner at a global law firm, Bryan Cave LLP, where he represents large, medium and small businesses. He provides day-to-day business law advice to public and private firms in the U.S. and abroad. Ken’s clients come from industries including fund management, family office structures, financial services, technology and customer services. His corporate and securities transactional experience is focused on mergers and acquisitions, public and private financings and domestic and international joint ventures.
Ken is also active in community and pro bono matters. He organized the firm’s mentor relationship with Thomas Jefferson High School in East New York, Brooklyn. He is past chairman of and counsel to the Board of Directors of PCI-Media Impact, a New York-based nonprofit with a presence in developing countries throughout the world.
Kip Howard
Kip Howard has spent the past 35 years founding and running a variety of highly successful small businesses, most recently Navis LLC, an international software and professional services company. Having graduated from Stanford with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology, his first company was a general contracting operation in San Francisco specializing in high-end Victorian restoration—a small business he grew to over 25 employees. Next, Kip co-founded a small-scale real estate development business, and then started a publishing company.
In his most recent venture, Kip joined Navis, a small startup company, as co-CEO. Kip helped grow the firm from seven employees to over 300 worldwide. Navis was sold to Zebra Technologies in 2007 and remains the dominant player in its market, running over half of the world’s major marine container terminals. Kip was a co-founder of Small Business Majority.
Renn Vara
Renn Vara is the co-founder and president of SNP Communications, Inc., a 20-year-old executive communications firm with 30 employees. The company serves Fortune 500 business leaders in high tech, financial and health services from offices in San Francisco and New York. They are currently working toward opening a Singapore office. While Renn has deep roots in Silicon Valley, he also spends a significant amount of time working with multinational companies in India, China, Singapore and Australia.
Prior to his current enterprise, Renn spent more than a decade in broadcasting. Over that duration, he developed a reputation for implementing innovative corporate media solutions. Renn earned his MBA at the University of San Francisco School of Business, where he is a now a lecturer. Renn was a co-founder of Small Business Majority.
