About
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Founder and CEO of Ready Life, a Black-Owned Fintech company, Ashley Bell is a former banking and corporate partner at the world’s largest law firm, Dentons LLP, and a former White House Policy Advisor for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Leveraging his extensive experience with both the public and private sectors, Ashley developed solutions to effectively bridge the intersection of business, law and government. Ashley co-founded and served as the General Counsel for the National Black Bank Foundation and the $250 million Black Bank Fund, which has delivered over half a billion dollars worth of deal flow to Black banks across the country.
Ashley served for four years in Senior Executive Service in the Federal Government, starting at the US Department of State, most recently as a Policy Advisor for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the White House Office of American Innovation. Simultaneously, Ashley served as the Regional Administrator for the US Small Business Administration (SBA) for the Southeastern United States.
Ashley is the Founder of 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center, the nation’s most influential Black and bipartisan coalition of elected officials, legal professionals, civic and business leaders focused on comprehensive policing and criminal justice reform at all levels of government. Ashley is also the Founder of Generation Inspiration, a youth development nonprofit whose mission is to teach life skills not taught in the classroom to at-risk students in his hometown of Gainesville, Georgia, and set them on a trajectory for success.
A former Hall County Commissioner elected at the young age of 27, Ashley was one of the youngest commissioners ever elected in the State of Georgia, representing the third fastest growing metropolitan area in America. Ashley began his legal career as a public defender and went on to become a celebrated trial attorney.
Ashley earned a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Valdosta State University and Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Civil Law from Louisiana State University. Ashley is a Fellow of the Civil Society Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
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