Social Impact Heroes: Why & How Jane Veron Is Helping To Change Our World

Be adaptable. You must be willing to evolve, or you’ll be eclipsed. It’s really easy to celebrate successes today, but those triumphs will be meaningless if you’re not prepared for tomorrow. So you always must be forward-thinking to deliver to your stakeholders.

As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jane Veron.

Jane Veron is the CEO and co-founder of The Acceleration Project (TAP), a nonprofit that empowers small business owners and accelerates their growth. TAP is creating a more equitable and inclusive economy by providing advisory services to under-resourced small business owners across the country. Since co-founding TAP in 2012, Jane has grown the organization to over 200 consultants that serve thousands of small business owners annually. TAP’s areas of expertise include finance, operations, strategy, marketing, and support throughout the entire capital lifecycle. In addition to her leadership of TAP, Jane is the President of EJA Industries, a holding company for middle market private equity investments. Previously, Jane worked in strategy and marketing at Bain & Company and American Express. Jane’s commitment to public service led her to serve as Mayor of Scarsdale, New York, from 2021 to 2023. Prior to that she was Deputy Mayor and a Trustee of the Village of Scarsdale from 2016 to 2020. Jane has held many civic leadership positions, including Chair of the Scarsdale Planning Board and President of the Scarsdale League of Women Voters. Jane has received numerous awards: the Scarsdale Mayor’s Award for Exceptional Leadership; the Daily Point of Light Award (organization founded by President George H.W. Bush); Crain’s list of Notables in Nonprofit and Philanthropy; the 2021 Global Game Changer award from TalentNomics for “Walking the Talk”; Westchester Magazine’s 2022 “914Inc Top Women in Business”; and the 2023 Harvard Business School Latino Alumni Association’s (HBSLAA) Distinguished Alum in the Latino Community Award for leading TAP’s work with Latino business owners. Jane was appointed to the new Investment Capital Advisory Committee (ICAC) of the U.S. Small Business Administration. She also serves on the Harvard Women’s Leadership Board; the Regional Plan Association Board; and the Nonprofit Westchester Board. Jane earned a BA magna cum laude from Yale University and an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School.

Jane Veron is CEO and co-founder of The Acceleration Project (TAP), a nonprofit empowering small business owners. TAP’s mission is to create a more equitable and inclusive economy by providing advisory services to the under resourced, especially women, people of color, and those left out of traditional systems. TAP accelerates their growth by providing high-impact and customized strategic, financial, operational, and marketing support.

TAP’s diverse consultant team of predominantly female professionals donates its time, expertise, and mentoring skills to provide strategic support. Leveraging rigorous training and proprietary tools, the TAP team empowers small business success, creating an exponential impact on entrepreneurs, their families, and their local communities. Starting in Westchester, New York, in 2012 with a volunteer-only six-person team, Jane grew TAP into a national force with 200+ pro bono consultants and a paid staff of 22. Under her leadership, TAP has donated more than 51,000 hours of consulting, valued at over $12MM.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

TAP’s story really starts with my transition from the private to the public sector. I’ve always wanted to use my time for social good. (I am not someone who can just sit around. I need to be doing something productive!) At the time, my family and I had just moved from New York City to Scarsdale. Scarsdale’s a wonderful place, especially to raise a family. However, I noticed there was no public playground in our neighborhood.

Looking at my young kids, I vowed: “We’re going to build a playground.” Next, I approached our local government and they said, “Okay. Persuade us.” From there, things really snowballed — in a good way. I organized people in our area. Together, we had to figure out how to lobby for needed funding. I went from town to town visiting playgrounds, noting the features we’d like the best. There were many hoops to jump through, but fortunately, this experience taught me so much about community organizing.

Before long, I became head of our neighborhood association. Then I became head of all the neighborhood associations. Our work took off like a rocket. Beyond building the playground, we got needed stop signs put in. We installed public gardens. This experience enabled me to get hands-on in my town, building grassroots collaborations in a positive, civic-minded way. Moreover, I was able to tap into my business skills to get things done, making a real difference in our community.

That first playground project catalyzed my civic career, and ultimately, led to me being elected mayor of Scarsdale. Note: I didn’t run for office until my youngest child was 10. It had been a family discussion for years, but with young kids, I couldn’t be out every night. Once my daughter turned 10, I ran.

Similarly, I started TAP when my oldest went to college. I launched her — then I wanted to launch my own venture. I had seen small businesses struggling and knew we had the talent to help. I also knew I could mobilize professionals for support. After building my civic career on organizing and directing volunteers, this was a natural evolution.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?

In a way, my civic activity was a natural extension of my lifelong strong desire to accomplish more. That’s just who I am. My time in the public sector taught me a simple, yet inescapable truth: If I wanted to get anything done, I had to roll up my sleeves and bring the right individuals to the table. Too often people complain about what is not right — but they don’t seize the chance to make a change. I found that at the local level with a lot of energy, motivation, and the ability to mobilize others, I could turn things around.

As an example, I represented our area during zoning discussions, lobbied for more school security, and rebuilt defunct organizations in my neighborhood. In essence, serving as mayor was the next logical role, in a line of many, enabling me to bring my “doer” mentality into my own ZIP code. Even better, the education on the job I received, especially surrounding good governance, civic procedures, and managing efficient public sector systems, informed both my vision and my process for TAP. From past successes, I knew I could mobilize professionals to help, especially as I built my civic career on organizing and directing so many volunteers, making TAP a natural next step.

Whether in local government or in business, I’ve long been fueled by a ceaseless desire to enhance my community, not just for my own children, but for all stakeholders. I have also long been a proponent of the idea that it’s far better to teach someone to fish than to give them a fish. By empowering business owners as a partner in their own success via TAP, they could use their own enterprises to create financial independence and wherewithal for their families and for themselves.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Oh wow. I make mistakes all the time! Here’s one: During initial iterations of TAP, we opened up the floodgates to any small business owner in the area. This was naïve in retrospect. We had to divert too many resources away from advising to screening, especially as we received a huge volume of candidates, many of whom were at varying stages of their business development.

Later, we recognized that partnering with mission-aligned organizations like Community Development Financial Institutions and industry-specific accelerators created robust pipelines of the right clients and enabled us to focus on providing our resources to businesses with the skill and will to soar. After working with TAP, these businesses were positioned to thrive and created a wonderful, cascading positive-sum outcome.

This experience only cemented my belief that small business ownership is the pathway to economic independence. Entrepreneurs are the single most resilient people on the planet, and I am so grateful to witness their many triumphs, a testament to their resolve and resilience in the face of so many obstacles.

Can you tell a story about a particular individual impacted or helped by your cause?

There was a woman we’ll call Brenda. A Black business owner and a single mom of two young children, Brenda is the owner of a hair salon. She hugged me at a TAP event and told me something that still touches me to this day: “Being accepted into the TAP program was like winning the lottery.”

First, may I say this hug belongs to all of us at TAP — not just me. There are so many unsung heroes in my organization who deserve the credit. Returning to Brenda, she needed her venture to work. She had two young children to support. Without her business, they couldn’t make ends meet.

As it turned out, Brenda was flailing before she came to TAP. She couldn’t pay her bills; she couldn’t manage cash. Importantly, we didn’t run her business for her. She did that. What we did was serve as her partner. As anyone who starts a new company will tell you, they must wear a lot of hats. You must suddenly be an expert in so many things. And of course, so much is coming at you every day. It seems like you will never master it all.

But Brenda rose to the occasion. With a little assistance from us and the consultants who empowered her, she learned how to operate her business better. Understanding her all-important financials stopped being a stumbling block. Also, in time, she perfected how to expertly price her services. Most importantly? She dug down deep to find what was in her to make her dream a living reality. That makes me so happy and so proud. That’s why I do this work. And I know my whole team feels the same way.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

Leadership is most of all about choosing the right people. Human capital is more important than anything else, particularly in the work we do. In any leadership role, you must endlessly guide your team, repeating the same message again and again. However, the better you pick your people from the outset, the easier daily operations go. Likewise, finding the right lanes for your employees is how to avoid micromanagement.

Delegation is critical. Giving your staff the space to hone their gifts makes the role of a leader 10 times easier. Central to my leadership philosophy is the need to listen carefully to everyone involved. Don’t just rely on the more vocal contributors. Listen to the quiet people in the room. You’ll be surprised at what they have to say. And how helpful they are to your process.

What are the five things you wish someone had told you when you first started your organization and why?

1. Execution over ideas: There are so many good ideas out there, but the most important aspect is how you execute on them. Proliferation of great thinking is really exciting, but in the end, it’s about getting those ideas to market. Be practical. Make sure you can adjust to face obstacles. Then iterate. Getting things done is what makes all the difference.
2. Surround yourself with problem solvers. The people you want to work with are those with a “can-do” attitude. It’s really easy to poke holes — to criticize — what you need are people who exude positivity, who believe there’s always a way. With the right attitude, anything is possible.
3. We succeed together: I knew this coming in, but it was really brought home in our work for TAP: Success is forever a group effort. There is nothing any of us on this planet can do alone. For that big win, we all must come together.
4. Be adaptable. You must be willing to evolve, or you’ll be eclipsed. It’s really easy to celebrate successes today, but those triumphs will be meaningless if you’re not prepared for tomorrow. So you always must be forward-thinking to deliver to your stakeholders.
5. Culture matters. While culture is so vitally important, I didn’t know just how hard it’d be to sustain it in a remote or hybrid environment. Our organizations reflect our values. We do our best work when we are truly together, truly connected. Absent physical proximity, leaders must work extra hard to retain the human component when only meeting virtually.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most good to the most people, what would that be?

I can tell you from the experience of being mayor of my town and head of my organization that the most important thing we can do is open our minds to others’ thoughts. So much good can be gained from empathy, from imagining what someone else is thinking. Ultimately, I believe people are good and have positive intentions. The more we can bring everyone together, particularly those with divergent views, the more we can solve our challenges so much faster. It’s also critical to dream big. Really big. I often tell my team: It takes as much time to execute small ideas as it does big ones.

Can you please give us your favorite life lesson quote. Can you share how that was relevant in your life?

Yes. It comes from the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I’m not someone who is particularly religious. Still, this passage has profound meaning for me. Daily, I struggle with dwelling on things I can’t influence. I would bet anyone reading this does, too. That’s human nature. Yet, over time, we can grow our discernment powers. As we improve, we start to realize just what we can change and what to let go. Every leader struggles with this: Picking the right things to focus on and letting go of extraneous stressors. Once you master this, your life really blooms, benefitting all you touch.

Is there a person in the world, or in the U.S., with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

The American businesswoman and writer, Frances Hesselbein who passed away in 2022 at the age of 107, would have been my pick. She served as CEO of the Girl Scouts. Ever since I was young, I’ve been a big fan of the Girl Scouts. It’s an organization that empowers young girls by giving them a voice to be change agents.

Hesselbein offers a brilliant model of leveraging talent. Even now, I can still recall listening to her when I was at Harvard Business School. Sitting in a vast auditorium with my peers, I was so impressed with how she built the organization. I can only hope I’m following in her footsteps, forging a path to benefit all stakeholders, truly bettering our world.

What’s more, I love the Girl Scouts model concerning the intersection between volunteers and people paid to solve problems. It’s something I employ today, using a paid team to mobilize others, increasing our volunteer power by multiple orders of magnitude. It’s a wonderful way to unite people, which is the secret to cultural success, whether you’re serving in local government or running a nonprofit to empower the underserved. It’s no secret that TAP is heavily dependent on our strong volunteer base, so I take much inspiration from the Girl Scouts’ laudable organization.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Sure. You can find me on LinkedIn and on our site.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success in your great work!