Strengthening Small Businesses and Unlocking Growth: Bpeace

In celebration of our partners and the impactful work they do to expand economic opportunity, we interviewed several of our Nasdaq Foundation quarterly grant recipients to learn more about their roles, backgrounds, and the importance of their work. We spoke with Alexandra Salas, CEO of Bpeace, about their work to help under-resourced entrepreneurs scale beyond constraints through programs like Breaking the $1M Barrier, which equips small businesses with the systems, leadership, and financial readiness needed to accelerate growth, create jobs, and build resilient local economies.

 Tell us about Bpeace. What is its core mission, and how does it empower economic opportunity in the communities you serve?

Bpeace is built on a simple belief: small businesses are engines of economic mobility. When they grow stronger, entire communities gain opportunity. Our core mission is to help under-resourced entrepreneurs—often excluded from traditional support systems—create jobs, strengthen livelihoods, and build more resilient local economies.

We drive growth by connecting entrepreneurs with our volunteer experts—“Skillanthropists” who bring deep business experience. Working side by side, they strengthen the fundamentals that unlock real expansion: solid systems, confident leadership, sharp financial management, smart market strategy, and operational readiness. The result is accelerated economic opportunity exactly where it’s needed most.

Our approach is relational and radically practical. Entrepreneurs gain access to tools, knowledge, and networks typically reserved for elite circles, delivered in a format built for accessibility and real-world impact. What follows is tangible: revenue climbs, new jobs emerge, teams strengthen, and communities gain the kind of financial stability that fuels generational impact.

Can you share a moment when you saw the impact of Bpeace come to life? What change did that moment help spark in terms of financial empowerment?

We see Bpeace’s impact most vividly in the moments when an entrepreneur makes a decision they once believed was out of reach—and their entire financial trajectory shifts. For Brandt Smith of SGS Contracting in North Carolina, that moment came after years of knowing he could win larger construction contracts but lacking the internal structure to deliver at scale. Working closely with Bpeace expert Luis Tejada, he rebuilt his company’s operational backbone from the ground up: formal job descriptions, clear roles, disciplined coordination, and reliable communication processes. That clarity didn’t just streamline the business—it unlocked Brandt’s ability to lead decisively and chase bigger opportunities. Within a year, SGS Contracting doubled revenue and profits, added a full-time job, and entered the pipeline for larger, more profitable projects.

A similar turning point came for Melinda Miller of PIXO. With guidance from Bpeace mentor Yvette Franco, she gained the leadership clarity needed to finally make a long-delayed financial move: hiring her first full-time project manager. That single decision freed her to focus on high-value strategy, plan several additional hires, strengthen her pipeline of long-term client work, and repurpose her Bpeace pitch into marketing that drives revenue. Across dozens of businesses, we’ve seen the same pattern—when founders strengthen leadership, operations, and financial fluency, confidence becomes a catalyst for revenue growth, access to capital, and job creation. These moments turn uncertainty into opportunity—and opportunity into lasting financial empowerment.

Your “Breaking the $1M Barrier” program will help under-resourced businesses in the Southeast U.S. scale beyond the startup stage. What makes this program distinctive, and how do you anticipate the Nasdaq Foundation’s Quarterly Grant helping you measure and amplify its impact?

While most incubators and accelerators focus on launching businesses, Breaking the $1M Barrier tackles what comes next—helping established small businesses scale beyond a revenue threshold that remains out of reach for most U.S. firms. We target the “missing middle”: revenue-generating companies with strong demand but insufficient internal systems, leadership capacity, or financial readiness to grow sustainably. What makes this program distinctive is its clarity of purpose: we strengthen the inside of the business—its operations, financial systems, team structure, and CEO decision-making—so founders can confidently pursue opportunities that once felt too big or too risky.

The Nasdaq Foundation’s Quarterly Grant will be pivotal in expanding and measuring this impact. It provides the capacity to reach more under-resourced Southeastern businesses poised for growth but still below the $1M mark—a milestone achieved by only a small fraction of U.S. firms, according to the JPMorgan Chase Institute. By equipping more entrepreneurs with the systems, discipline, and strategic foundation required to scale, we aim to shift those statistics and move more founders from stability to long-term prosperity. With Nasdaq’s partnership, we can quantify not just the stories, but the structural economic change that happens when small businesses acquire the systems and confidence that unlock the $1M milestone, and everything that comes after it.

What’s one surprising insight or strategy your team has discovered that’s opened up new possibilities for the people you serve to grow their businesses and build more secure financial futures?

One of our most surprising insights is the transformative power of including staff—not just founders—in the learning process. When teams build skills together, businesses gain alignment, execute more effectively, and sustain growth more reliably. This realization has reshaped how we design every program and how we think about strengthening a business from the inside out.

We also discovered that most entrepreneurs aren’t lacking opportunities; they’re lacking readiness. Many already had pathways to banks, corporate buyers, or new markets, but their internal systems—financial processes, operational routines, team structures, and leadership discipline—weren’t built to support the next level. Once those foundations were strengthened, intimidating opportunities suddenly became achievable.

This shift toward “growth readiness” has opened new possibilities for the people we serve. By helping entrepreneurs fortify their internal capacity, we’re seeing them secure major contracts, hire for expansion, and build far more stable financial futures.

What lasting impact do you hope Bpeace will help shape in the communities you serve?

We envision communities where small businesses aren’t just surviving—they’re generating stable jobs, circulating wealth locally, and shaping stronger, more equitable economies. The lasting impact we strive for is both simple and profound: financial security becomes possible because small businesses have the tools to grow beyond their constraints.

When a business owner doubles revenue, hires neighbors, wins a corporate contract, or accesses capital for the first time, that success ripples outward. Families gain stability. Employees find upward mobility. Local supply chains strengthen. Neighborhoods benefit from jobs that don’t vanish in downturns. Over time, these individual victories compound into something larger: entrepreneur-driven economic mobility that endures across generations. Bpeace aims to leave behind ecosystems powered by confident leaders, resilient companies, and communities where opportunity is not the exception—it’s the norm.