2017 Top 25 Women in Power Impacting Diversity
Pursue a Vision of Inclusiveness

Driving progress in Diversity & Inclusion requires strong leadership, well-defined strategies, and successful relationship building. The Women in Power Impacting Diversity bring these success elements and much more to their organizations.

DiversityPlus Magazine is honored to once again to showcase the Top 25 Women in Power Impacting Diversity. They are professionals who have broken through glass ceilings during their careers and now use their positions to promote equal opportunities for diverse suppliers in the strong belief that Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) at every level is critical to organizations that want to remain competitive well into the future.

Supplier diversity programs are getting more sophisticated, reflecting the increasing importance of diversity in the supply chain and to business success. The diversity professionals named as the Top 25 Women in Power hold prominent, high—level positions in their organizations, but they realize they cannot build strong supplier diversity programs alone. In reading the nomination responses, a common theme emerged. Supplier diversity program building requires embedding an appreciation and accountability for diversity in organizational processes, and developing internal and external relationships that cultivate potential, qualified suppliers.

Embedding supplier diversity in organizational processes is only possible if executives are willing to listen to the business case for diversity, support the efforts of the diversity specialists, promote an organization-wide culture of Diversity and Inclusion, and hold decision-makers throughout the organization accountable for diversity in their units. This is a big agenda the women took on with great passion because they each have a vision for their organization that is focused on developing equal opportunities for diverse suppliers. The challenge for many is finding diverse suppliers with the capacity and capabilities to manage large corporate contracts. For too long, many MWBEs were shut out of the procurement processes through various barriers like lack of access to capital, and did not have growth opportunities. For this reason, the Women in Power Impacting Diversity developed programs that are built on a foundation of relationship building and providing opportunities to diverse suppliers interested in increasing capacity and doing large contracts.

The past year's strategies for building supplier relationships were different from prior years in several ways. There is a definite movement toward offering more intense development opportunities. They include one-on-one mentoring, holding invitation–only supplier events, cultivating potential suppliers, and one-on-one introduction meetings between suppliers and sourcing professionals. The Women in Power are intentional about giving diverse suppliers what they need to succeed, including giving them access to intellectual assets and accelerating payment terms. The women diversity specialists are also adamant that setting cross-functional corporate goals and holding managers accountable for making progress toward goals are necessary steps in any company that is serious about expanding diversity in the supply chain. The female developed strong communication systems, too, holding regular meetings with sourcing category teams, developing tools that increase interactions with suppliers, and developing teams of diversity champions and diversity ambassadors as advocates.

There were three additional trends noted during the nomination review process. Once trend is increasing use of data and data analytics to track progress toward goals. Targets are set, reports are generated, dashboards are made available, and performance reviews include goal measurements. The second trend is the leveraging of Supplier diversity programs to improve environmental and social sustainability. Blending supplier diversity with sustainability is an efficient and productive strategy that leads to new supplier opportunities.

The third trend is one of the most interesting. Bias can easily creep into supply chain decisions just like it does in the talent management processes. To eliminate the bias, Leann Thompson at Cargill developed a pre-read template for sourcing category teams attending supplier introduction meetings and Concetta Savovich at Abbott uses a supplier review tool to help level the playing field.

The bios of the Top 25 Women in Power Impacting Diversity are brief, but they are filled with innovative ideas that other companies can use or adapt. The women chosen as awardees use very different approaches to growing supplier diversity and are happy to discuss their strategies with anyone who is interested in getting more detailed information. This is an opportunity for organizational leaders to connect with the best-of-the-best in supplier diversity and join the effort to develop an inclusive corporate ecosystem.