LinkedIn Profile
Curriculum vitae
Biosketch
Mission
Promoting equity and opportunity in health, education, and employment for all people through teaching, research, practice, advocacy, and service.
Bio
I am the founding principal of the Neal Firm, which provided consulting and mediation services, and the Heirs Property Information Project. In 2021, I received a Presidential appointment to serve as administrator of the Rural Business-Cooperative Service, an agency of the Rural Development mission area at the US Department of Agriculture. In the role, provided oversight of $2.5 billion deployed annually in more than two dozen grant, loan, loan guarantee, and technical assistance programs aimed at facilitating economic prosperity across rural America through investment in businesses and cooperatives. I served in this role until 2024.
I served as president of Southern Bancorp Community Partners, a CDFI loan fund and financial development organization promoting economic mobility in rural Arkansas and Mississippi through April 2021. At Southern, wealth building isn’t just for the wealthy, so they provide the products, services, and support to help people reach their financial goals. I started at Southern as a grant writer in 2009.
In 2013, I started a statewide grassroots organization promoting passage of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act. The legislation was passed with no dissent in 2015. My 2015 TedX talk focused on this work. I am the author of the award winning blog, So What Can I Do, and serve on the boards of the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission, the Little Rock Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. I maintain an active interest in heir property retention, internet equity, and nontraditional access to education.
After a career in the basic biosciences, I transitioned to work that has a more immediate effect on human well-being. I speak frequently on family economic security, internet equity, and career development and have taught both online and in the classroom at Emory University, Loyola University Chicago, Shorter College, and the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences.
After graduating from the historic Little Rock Central High School, I completed my undergraduate degree in biology at Swarthmore College and later earned a doctorate in genetics from Emory University and a master’s in bioethics and health policy from Loyola University Chicago. I also completed executive education in impact investing at the University of Oxford Said School of Business.
Access to my writing, musical compositions, and more is available here at www.karamaneal.com. You may be surprised at what you find! I’d love to hear from you on Twitter @karamaneal or email me at karamaneal at gmail dot com. ORCID ID orcid.org/0000-0002-0337-9963