Governor Wes Moore recently named our esteemed colleague Nichelle Johnson as Maryland’s first MBE Ombudsman in the Governor’s Office of Small, Minority & Women Business Affairs. The Moore-Miller administration is working to close the racial wealth gap and promote access to work, wages, and wealth in part through increasing state government’s performance toward reaching its 29% aspirational Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) Program goal. Nichelle has a 20-year record of helping entrepreneurs start and expand their businesses in the private sector and providing technical support and IT services as both a prime contractor and subcontractor. She spent the last four years in the Governor’s Office of Small, Minority & Women Business Affairs serving as an MBE Compliance Manager. Nichelle’s broad scope of responsibilities in this new role includes working with prime contractors and MBEs to resolve issues that arise during contract performance, develop policies and guidance to assist agencies in implementing the MBE Program, and developing new training programs for both prime contractors and MBE subcontractors to ensure final contract outcomes meet established goals.
