VR Small brings a rare breadth of experience to the stage: U.S. Navy service in health care, corporate communications and operations in the financial sector, senior leadership in human services, entrepreneurship, and organizational transformation. She has built a consulting practice in strategic planning, change management, and training; created a professional association that connected women to leadership and business opportunities; and served in civic and business leadership roles spanning national chambers of commerce and associations. As an adjunct professor and university leader, she designed applied learning experiences and transformed a campus health department into a center for healthy living. Across these fields, her work has centered on seeing what people and institutions need, bringing the right voices together, and turning ideas into structures that work.
Over the past decade, VR has turned that experience into a national mission with measurable results. Having already founded the Veteran Women’s Enterprise Center, she stood with six fellow women veterans to advocate for the legislation that made Texas the first state to recognize Women Veterans Day. Under her leadership, VWEC has reached more than 5,000 people across more than 40 states and internationally, empowering strategic growth planning through mentoring, technical assistance, and performance-based implementation funding. Now Chair of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO) South Central Region, she is helping shape the conversation about capital readiness and the infrastructure entrepreneurs need throughout the life of their business. As a dynamic educator, moderator, and motivational speaker, VR brings the insight of someone who has built across sectors and turned challenges into new pathways for herself and others. She invites audiences to recognize their own capacity, connect across boundaries, and put bold ideas into action, ultimately changing the way we see the world and do business.
