Andrews Kurth Hosts US Diversity Leaders Meeting on Breakthrough Ideas of Supplier Diversity

(Houston, Texas)—Leading practitioners and thinkers of business diversity and inclusion will come together at Andrews Kurth LLP on June 17–18 in Houston for dialogue focused on building breakthrough frameworks for supplier diversity programs. The meeting, “Supplier Diversity 2.0 – The Economics of Comprehensive Community Wealth and Jobs Creation Initiatives,” engages diversity leaders with an array of practicing experts in supplier diversity, academic thinkers and policy makers. Results from a May, 2013 survey about supplier diversity issues will be explored.

The meeting is the next True Blue Inclusion venue in the “Architects of Change: The Chief Diversity Officer” conversations. The themed series is now in its second year, and the meetings have drawn participation from chief diversity officers both in the US and globally. The coming two-day agenda on supplier diversity gives participants unparalleled opportunities to access best thinkers and practicing business leaders in the field.

“Wendy Lewis, Major League Baseball’s Senior Vice President - Diversity and Strategic Alliances, will moderate key parts of the program, sharing her lessons in using innovative supplier diversity practices as a fundamental driver in professional baseball’s highly successful community engagement and outreach,” said Carlton Yearwood, True Blue Inclusion’s Senior Managing Partner. “The notion that supplier diversity programs can have substantial influence in creating local jobs, improving local economies and sustaining a higher quality of community life is powerful. But it isn’t a goal common to many supplier diversity programs. We hope to show it should be and can be.”

The program will also feature Dr. Stephen Klineberg, Professor of Sociology and Co-Director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. Dr. Klineberg is an expert on urban change patterns and dynamics, having initiated the noted Houston Area Survey to identify and document changes in demographics and economics over the past decades. He will point to how the transformations of today’s urban centers can be positively and sustainably affected by the contributions via supplier diversity.

Dr. Henry Taylor, Jr., Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Director of the Center for Urban Studies, the University of Buffalo, will converse with attendees as well. He will examine how comprehensive supplier diversity, community wealth and jobs creation initiatives regenerate distressed communities, and address the possibilities of a leadership role for the chief diversity officer and corporate America.

A panel with representatives from public and private sectors will have an extended discussion on the national and global impact of comprehensive supply chain, community wealth and jobs initiatives. The panel will include: Ralph Moore, President-Ralph G. Moore & Associates as facilitator; K. Layton, Director, Diversity Business Development, Johnson Controls, Inc.; Michael K. Robinson, Program Director, Global Supplier Diversity and Supplier Connection, IBM; Carlecia D. Wright, Director for the City of Houston Office of Business Opportunity; and Candace Jackson, Special Advisor, Minority Business Development Agency, United States Department of Commerce.

“Combined, these speakers bring an unprecedented strength of focus and energy to reshaping the role of supplier diversity initiatives to something much more valued and powerful,” added Yearwood. “It’s a new road for many chief diversity officers to travel. But the diversity leaders who are attending our Architects of Change conversations seem to ‘get it’ about the real value in building new approaches and solutions.”

Participants will also discuss the results from a May, 2013 True Blue Inclusion Diversity Axiom survey that probed attitudes and understandings currently in the marketplace about an array of supplier diversity issues. The survey is both unique and unusual in that it sought respondents through social networking as well as more traditional Internet-based messaging.

“What we want to do,” explained Catherine Smith, Managing Partner of True Blue Inclusion, “is to encourage and support the Chief Diversity Officer as a business and thought leader. We bring the freshest current thinking and early insights to the table, both from our extensive contact networks and through the original work we put in the field. This will be evident at our meeting in Houston, where we will create exciting, open dialogue on two aspects of supplier diversity that we believe harbor possible breakthrough approaches: sustainable community wealth and job creation. These are notions that usually don’t even surface when CDO’s get together. With this conversation in June, we are making them the primary focus.”

The True Blue Inclusion meeting is being co-sponsored by United Airlines, and by Andrews Kurth LLP, which will also host the session at its Houston headquarters facilities.

Commenting as host, Elizabeth Campbell, Partner and Chief Diversity Officer, Andrews Kurth LLP, noted, “We are pleased to host this group of leading diversity thinkers. Diversity and inclusion are core values of Andrews Kurth, and participating in this discussion about supplier diversity is consistent with our commitment to diversity and inclusion as expressed in our business strategy.”

Diedra Fontaine, Director, Diversity and Inclusion at United Airlines, observes that the meeting’s focus of stretching the boundaries of thought about supplier diversity is highly relevant for companies like United with global networks. “When you have operations – and people – across the globe, the notion of supplier diversity reflects a whole new range of intent and meaning, with more direct and profound results on people and communities. We recognize the economic and community wealth creation possibilities that result from a positively managed supplier diversity initiative, and continue to foster opportunities for supplier diversity throughout our program.”

A summary of conversation, thought and action at the session will be available after June 18 at True Blue Inclusion’s website, trueblueinclusion.com.

As released by the former Kenyon & Kenyon LLP.