Diedra Henry-Spires

Ms. Henry-Spires has been selected to serve as the Senior Advisor for COVID Programs to the Administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration. In this role, Ms. Spires has been tasked with improving and enhancing the efficiency of COVID programs from application to award.  As such, she works closely with the Administrator, The White House, Capitol Hill, and Stakeholders to ensure that the relief needed by small businesses across the country is made available and accessible. 

Ms. Henry-Spires is a top advocacy and policy strategist and a former Professional Staff Member, for Human Services and Income Security, for the Senate Committee on Finance. As a former member of the Committee’s Health Team, she is credited as one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act.  As well, Ms. Henry-Spires is credited with shepherding the expansion of unemployment benefits and work supports during the great recession of 2008 and providing job creation policy and income security guidance and expertise for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), Jobs Creation Act of 2010, The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, and The Middle-Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. Since leaving the Hill in 2014, Ms. Henry-Spires has served as the CEO of The Dalton Daley Group for Children and Families, a Maryland based nonprofit. 

Ms. Henry-Spires holds a B.S. in Health Policy and Administration from the Pennsylvania State University, a Certificate in Delivery System Reform from the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government and was a Brookings Institute LEGIS Fellow.  She is currently a lecturer in Public Policy and Health Policy for the University of Texas, Archer Center in Washington D.C.