Business Consultant
Virginia MBDA Business Center
In January of 2021, after completing her seven-year appointment with the Commonwealth, Wiley founded Rainmaker Industries Group, LLC, a consultancy based in Virginia. With nearly three decades of experience in her chosen fields of public relations and marketing, supplier diversity and minority business development, the consultancy is a culmination of her work to leverage contacts and contracts for the sole purpose of elevating communities of color and creating generational wealth for a diverse people.
In January of 2018, Wiley was reappointed by the 73rd Governor, Ralph S. Northam to continue her work in establishing a new Agency to support small, women and minority owned businesses (SWaM). Her charge was to attract new talent, enhance technology and reposition the Agency, ultimately, allowing for the delivery of new programs and services for the business community.
Her leadership and the Agency’s role were expanded at the onset of the COVID-19 health pandemic in 2020, when her team led efforts to assist small, women and minority owned businesses with accessing federal funds for the paycheck protection program and economic injury disaster loans. In the final months of 2020, she had oversight for the deployment of over $100 million in small business recovery grants to more than 3,000 Virginia small businesses. Wiley’s final major initiative included her work in the development and implementation of the Governor’s Executive Order 35 and her team’s completion of the Commonwealth’s Disparity Study. The ten-month study outlines recommendations that champion advancing contracting opportunities for women and minority owned businesses.
In Wiley’s initial appointment by Virginia’s 72nd Governor Terence R. McAuliffe, she directed the merger of the former Department of Minority Business Enterprise (DMBE) and Department of Business Assistance (DBA). Her first order of business was to rally state buyers and Agency Heads to support the Governor’s initiative to increase utilization of small, women and minority (SWaM) owned businesses. McAuliffe’s Executive Order 20, signed in July of 2014, established a 42% goal in procuring state contracts. In FY 2016, the Commonwealth spent 37% or $2.4B (discretionary spend, $5.5B) with SWaM businesses, up from 32% in prior years FY14 and FY15. The Commonwealth has an average annual discretionary budget of approximately $6 billion.
Tracey is a Richmond native who attended Richmond Public Schools and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communications from Old Dominion University.