Ms. Claybourne’s commitment and success in working with the entrepreneurial community has been recognized by the Small Business Administration.
Hilary Claybourne has been selected to serve as the director of the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The center facilitates new business starts, access to capital, job creation, and workforce development which has resulted in significant economic impact with businesses winning government contracts in the hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Services include business advising and training supported by the Small Business Administration, the Alabama SBDC and UAH. The center is located in the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce.
Ms. Claybourne earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration from The University of Alabama with a focus on international business and a Master’s in Business Administration from Boston University. She holds multiple executive certificates including Design Thinking from MIT and Cybersecurity from Harvard.
She has more than 20 years of business strategy experience working with Fortune 500 companies, startups, non-profits, as well as the Department of Defense, the State Department, various government contractors and multiple education and training institutions.
In Europe, she worked for the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, serving as the CIO for a military hospital in Vicenza, Italy. She was the founder and CEO of CC, Inc, where she focused on providing professional development and business leadership coaching from entrepreneurs to executives.
Ms. Claybourne’s commitment and success in working with the entrepreneurial community has been recognized by the Small Business Administration in awarding her the "SBA Veteran Entrepreneur Advocate of the Year" for the Southern Region and "Veteran Entrepreneur Champion" for the state of Alabama. As an advocate for continuous improvement, Ms. Claybourne serves on the Statewide Baldrige based Alabama Performance Excellence Award program (ALPex).
She is a graduate of Leadership Huntsville, Class 23, and has served in multiple supporting roles for the leadership programs as well as the founding and program committees for Leadership Management Academy. Ms. Claybourne is currently serving as the governor’s appointee to the Alabama Bicentennial Commission. She serves on numerous non-profit boards dedicated to business and community engagement, has a passion for bringing teams together to collaborate for business and community success, and is committed to leadership and business and workforce development for the expansion of the entrepreneurial eco system in the region.
