Citi stokes small businesses on Main Street.

I'm in Washington, D.C., this week, along with hundreds of others who are in the business of helping businesses, for the Association for Enterprise Opportunity 's (AEO) annual microfinance conference. We're here to share best practices and develop new approaches for supporting small business, which everyone agrees are the engines of any local economy and key sources of job creation. In fact, a Citi-funded AEO study that was just released found that if one in three microenterprises hired one employee, the U.S. economy would reach full employment.

I am proud to represent Citi, a global leader in business support with an institutional team focused on microfinance and a company-wide commitment to local businesses. Every day, thousands of Citi employees in the U.S. and around the world are helping to build businesses in their communities by providing mentoring and advice to complement our lending activities.

And, of course, we work closely with many national and local organizations, like AEO and its members, to ensure that there is a place for all entrepreneurs -- including, importantly, those in underserved communities -- to receive the technical assistance and resources they need.

Our partnerships with nonprofits, led by Citi Community Development, go beyond philanthropy to include advocacy and helping key players make connections. Through our ability to bring together organizations with complementary strengths, we can facilitate the dissemination of knowledge and, importantly, the bringing of impactful programs to scale.

Knowledge-sharing is fundamental to any collaborative effort, so Citi provided a communications grant to enable AEO to create a website that leverages social media, innovative database technology and other assets to inform the microfinance field and small businesses about developments in the industry, available resources and opportunities for collaboration.

And, of course, knowledge-sharing proceeds at full tilt at gatherings like this week's AEO conference. That's why Citi is pleased to be the lead sponsor of the event and why I and a number of my Citi colleagues are here to share and to learn.