Staff

Lola Aré, Senior Business Development Rep Business Consultant

Oakland County Planning and Economic Development Services
248-858-0783
arel@oakgov.com

Current Focus

Ms. Aré is a Business Consultant with Oakland County. In her current position within the economic development team, Ms. Aré's primary focus is on assisting business owners with analyzing the feasibility of their business ideas, developing a business plan, marketing, licensing and miscellaneous business questions. She reviews and critiques business and marketing plans and coordinates the Professional Days Program to answer business related legal or accounting challenges. Ms. Aré assists established and growing Oakland County businesses with management concerns and growing pains. She also educates her client base on available resources offered by both Oakland County and the State of Michigan. Ms. Aré's other areas of expertise are in marketing and the preparation of cash flow projections.  She works with small businesses spanning a variety of industries including Emerging Sector businesses.
  
Professional Background

Ms. Aré is a certified Michigan Small Business Counselor and has counseled small businesses on a one-on-one basis for the past sixteen years.  She is also a certified FastTrac Facilitator and NxLevel Trainer and has taught entrepreneur classes through the Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center (MI- SBTDC) for the last three years.  Class offerings include the Business Basics series for startups as well as higher level entrepreneur classes such as the NxLevel Entrepreneurial series and FastTrac for established businesses.  Additionally, Ms. Aré is an Adjunct Faculty at Walsh College in Troy and Schoolcraft College in Livonia teaching small business management and Industrial Entrepreneurship classes.

Education

She received her Masters of Business Administration (MBA) with concentrations in Marketing and Finance from The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.  Ms. Aré also has a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in General Business with a minor in economics from The University of Michigan - Flint.