Robert Walsh

Commissioner
NYC Department Small Business Services

Robert W. Walsh was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) by Mayor Bloomberg in January 2002.  During his tenure, he has redefined how the City serves and responds to the needs of the City’s 220,000 small businesses.

SBS has invigorated the City's 64 Business Improvement Districts– the largest network of BIDs in the country – which collectively invest more than $98 million dollars in the maintenance, development and promotion of commercial districts throughout the City. Under Walsh’s leadership, SBS enhanced the delivery of services to New York City’s small businesses. Through NYC Business Solutions, SBS provides businesses with business planning assistance, business courses, help accessing financing, hiring and training employees, selling to the government, and accessing incentives. To make starting, operating and expanding a business simple and easy, SBS launched online tools through NYC Business Express. SBS has also energized the City’s promotion and support of minority- and women-owned businesses.

Since Mayor Bloomberg merged the City’s adult workforce development programs with SBS in July 2003, Walsh has led the effort to link workforce and economic development by meeting the needs of both businesses and jobseekers. Under his leadership, SBS has increased the number of Workforce1 Career Centers from three to eight and implemented data-driven performance management, resulting in an increase in the number of placements made by the Career Centers each quarter from just 127 in 2004 to more than 6,800 during the last quarter. SBS also overhauled the City’s training voucher program by focusing on training provider accountability and tightly linking training opportunities to jobs. The Workforce1 Career Centers have achieved 66,000 job placements since 2004 and aim to place New Yorkers in 20,000 jobs in 2009.

Prior to his appointment, Walsh spent five years in North Carolina as President of Charlotte Center City Partners, an organization dedicated to improving and growing Charlotte’s central business district.  From 1989 to April 1997, he led the Union Square Partnership, where he played a key role in the neighborhood's revitalization.  During the 1980's, he worked in the administration of Mayor Edward I. Koch.  He began his career in public service as a New York City Urban Fellow, a program he later directed.  Commissioner Walsh holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from Fordham University.