On November 2-5 in Orlando, FL, the NMSDC will be holding its 2014 Conference and Business Opportunity Fair. The conference attracts corporate leaders, procurement executives and supplier diversity professionals from top multinational companies, as well as leading MBE owners and international organizations. There are great workshops and keynote speeches as well as the opportunity to […]
As I’ve discussed before, MBEs trying to become preferred suppliers for large corporations need to be aware of the many qualifications that these companies consider when choosing who to do business with. To a certain degree, being able to provide the product or services that they are looking for is the easy part, certainly it’s […]
This week we turn our Corporate Spotlight on L. Jay Burks, PhD. I met Jay over a year or so ago. He’s been a great resource for me, and I think you’ll all benefit from learning more about Jay and his work. Jay is currently the Manager of Supplier Diversity at the Comcast Corporation, with […]
The Western Regional Minority Supplier Development Council’s (WRMSDC) Minority Business Enterprise Input Committee (MBEIC) held a General Assembly hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on June 6, 2014. The event, “Think like a Corporate Buyer,” included a panel of Corporate Supplier Diversity Professionals from major corporations as well as breakout sessions, and […]
Congratulations to Brian Tippens, on his new role at HP as Chief Diversity Officer! Brian has been with HP for over 14 years, most recently as the Global Real Estate (GRE) Director of Energy, Sustainability and Integrated Facilities Management and before that as a member of the Global Procurement Executive Leadership Team, where he built […]
When my wife Maria and I started ATR International 25 years ago, we had no idea of the crazy, wonderful journey we were embarking on. I think few entrepreneurs really do, and I often joke that if they did, they might not actually start a business at all! Most of the time your focus as […]
A few weeks ago I was on a conference call planning for an upcoming panel at a diversity event that we were all a part of. On the call were people from the corporate diversity office of a large global company, their procurement department, and several other MBEs, such as ourselves. One of the procurement […]
Recently, I attended the Western Region Minority Supplier Development Council’s (MSDC) Annual Holiday Luncheon for a very special reason: I was there to see our Corporate Diversity Manager, Angelique Solorio, receive their Volunteer of the Year award. I may be biased, but it couldn’t have gone to a more deserving person!
They sometimes say that in the business world “your network is your net worth.” There’s a lot of truth in that idea and it’s been that way since, well, probably since commerce was invented centuries ago. What is different now is how we network and the countless ways that we connect. Technology has changed everything: […]