What they did: It's no secret that small businesses have trouble getting loans. Small-business loans shrank 8.3% from 2008 to 2010, says the Small Business Administration, and are still declining. That was an opening for New York's Newtek Business Services, which issued $65.5 million in SBA-approved loans in fiscal 2010, making it one of the nation's largest nonbank lenders. How does it attract small-business clients? Its willingness to make loans sure helps. But the firm, with sales of $112 million and after-tax net income of $1.4 million in 2010, also offers payroll and other business services, and provides loans to the small-business clients of Morgan Stanley and other alliance partners. And unlike big banks, says president and CEO Barry Sloane, 51, "we specialize in working with small business."
It takes something special to run young companies, and these players have it. They may not be corporate, but they're all major-league talents.
