Author: Deb Johnson

Director of Programs, NMSDC Academy

Posted on by Deb Johnson

Interested candidates should submit their resumes to jobs@nmsdc.org​

The Director of Programs, NMSDC Academy will be responsible to execute strategies for programs and educational offerings that support the mission of NMSDC to advance business opportunities for certified minority business enterprises (MBEs) by integrating them into corporate and public sector supply chains, build MBE capacity and capabilities to promote growth and facilitate MBE-MBE partnerships to meet the needs of our corporate members.

In this high-impact role, you will work closely with the Vice President of Academy, assisting with program development in collaboration with different stakeholders and ensure programs are executed and managed effectively and efficiently. A keen understanding of established and emerging practices in supplier diversity, minority business advancement, a deep network among them and ability to manage multi-faceted programs will help you thrive in this role.

The ideal candidate should possess exceptional verbal and written communications skills and an energy and passion for program development and driving results, should believe in NMSDC’s mission, extremely motivated in advancing it further and be highly creative in scaling our organization’s influence and impact.

Is this something that interests you? Join our proud team that is passionately committed to supporting minority businesses to grow profitably.

Primary Responsibilities:

  • Define strategy for programming and education offerings to support NMSDC four organizational pillars (certify, connect, develop and advocate)
  • Execute programming strategy for all non-conference and conference meetings and events for NMSDC
  • Develop specialized, targeted programming and educational offerings for constituency groups across the network (women of color, emerging young entrepreneurs, corporate program managers, corporate plus, MBEs. etc.)
  • Responsible for directing and leading key program and industry group committees
  • Drive E-Learning strategy, development, and curation of educational content
  • Perform market research on current trends, future needs, and requirements of an ever-changing supply chain across multiple industries, best practices, growth opportunities and other economic factors useful to minority businesses and corporate members
  • Develop and leverage best practices and provide thought leadership (white papers, research)
  • Develop and execute relevant programs in partnership with key grant funding sources

Qualifications:

  • Previous experience in supply chain management, supplier diversity or related discipline strongly preferred
  • Must demonstrate passion and commitment to the advancement, advocacy, and development of Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native American owned businesses
  • Experience or expertise with various analytics tools a plus, such as Microsoft Office Suite
  • Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated experience in working with diverse stakeholders
  • Excellent communication skills internally and externally, with all levels of organizations
  • Ability to work unsupervised and under own initiative
  • Ability to prioritize, multi-task, and coordinate workload and work under pressure to meet deadlines

 

 

 

 

 

Ying McGuire’s One Month Reflection

Ying McGuire’s One Month Reflection

Posted on by Deb Johnson

Ying McGuire reflects on first month at NMSDC

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. My day-to-day journey as the CEO and President of NMSDC over the last month has brought me a whole new perspective. It has filled me with a true sense of hope and excitement about the future of this storied organization.

I feel fortunate to have had the time to meet with and get to know the dedicated team at our National office. I am grateful to our board members, committee chairs, national MBEIC, affiliated councils’ 3-legged stool leadership team, and NGO partners who have taken their time to offer their candid feedback and share their words of wisdom with me. In addition, I could not ask for a better Board Chair and other Officers, who have been a guiding light. I have witnessed the passion and commitment to accelerating minority business growth and helping our country close the racial wealth gap, becoming the glue that holds our MBEs, corporate members, 23 regional councils, and NGO partners together despite unprecedented challenges.

Over the next 2 months, I will be hosting weekly “Huddle with Ying” sessions to get to know our MBEs, corporate members, and seek your input on ways that we can collectively grow MBE revenue profitably while bringing value to our corporate members. Our team will review and reflect on your input and incorporate most relevant ones into our future strategy. An exclusive invite coming to you soon.

Currently our team is working hard to produce a reimagined and impactful virtual 2021 NMSDC Conference + Business Opportunity Exchange, designed to Activate Your G.R.I.T.! We are excited to bring you an interactive, invigorating, and inspiring series of events: Economic Summit, Emerging Young Entrepreneur Program, Women of Color, CPO Summit, to name a few. You will be introduced to several exciting and innovative new initiatives launched at the conference to help empower you and strengthen your business. I hope you’ll register today, to take advantage of the early bird special rate.

Thank you to everyone that has made my first month phenomenal. Your support, authenticity, enthusiasm, trust, and willingness to work together has inspired me. I look forward to seeing you in our virtual room for “Huddle with Ying” and our Annual Conference.

Ying McGuire
CEO & President, NMSDC

 

For additional information about NMSDC, log on to www.NMSDC.org. For interviews, please call 212- 944-2430. Follow NMSDC on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

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Executive Assistant to CEO & President

Posted on by Deb Johnson

Interested candidates should submit their resumes to jobs@nmsdc.org​

Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer & President, the Executive Assistant is passionately committed to advancing the mission of our organization and provides comprehensive support in a one-on-one working relationship.

The Executive Assistant serves as the primary point of contact for all matters pertaining to the CEO & President and serves as a liaison to the Executive Leadership Team and Board of Directors and oversees special projects.

This dynamic position requires the ability to anticipate needs, think critically, and offer solutions to problems with a high level of professionalism and confidentiality. The Executive Assistant must be creative and enjoy working within a small, fast- paced environment that is mission-focused, results-driven and customer service oriented. The ideal individual will have the ability to exercise good judgment in a variety of situations, and the ability to maintain a realistic balance among multiple priorities.

Job Location: Remote/Preferred Location: Austin
Employment Status: Full-Time

Primary Responsibilities:

  • Provide comprehensive support services within the Executive Office Team that ensures outstanding communication and responsiveness
  • Provide sophisticated calendar management; prioritize inquiries and requests, troubleshoot conflicts with little guidance, make judgments and recommendations to ensure smooth day- to-day engagements
  • Creative writing for CEO’s speaking engagements, scripts for events, external meetings
  • Acts as a liaison with the Board of Directors, Executive Committee, other departments, affiliates, MBEs and external partners; handling confidential and non-routine information
  • Anticipate CEO’s needs, as well as plan, prioritize and organize the activities, offering a “gatekeeper” & “gateway” support, creating win-win situations for direct access to CEO’s time
  • Proactively, create CEO’s travel plans, prepare detailed itineraries, agendas, and compiling documents for travel-related meetings and speaking engagements; includes timely completion of expense and mileage reports
  • Develop presentation and various documents that correspond to CEO’s meetings, speaking engagements, event attendance and have deliverables in advance for review and finalization
  • Proofreads organization wide documents for spelling, grammar/format and making appropriate changes
  • Work with the Executive Office Team to coordinate the CEO’s outreach activities. Follow up on contacts made by the CEO to cultivate ongoing relationships
  • Ensures that the CEO’s bio is kept updated and responds to requests for materials by external stakeholders, regarding the CEO & President and the organization in general
  • Proactively prioritizes conflicting needs; handles matter expeditiously and follows-through on requests to successful completion with attention to details; often with deadline pressures
  • Work with a diverse group of key executives internal and external in addition to employees and customers. Other projects/duties as assigned for the overall benefit of the organization

Qualifications:

  • Significant executive support experience, including supporting C-level executives. Nonprofit board experience is highly preferred
  • Strong organizational skills that reflect ability to perform and prioritize multiple tasks seamlessly with excellent attention to detail
  • Preferred marketing and creative writing skills, with high level of imagination and visual narration capabilities
  • High degree of professionalism in dealing with diverse groups of people, including executive leadership team and staff, Board of Directors, corporate executives, MBEs, and partners.
  • Technically advanced and capable in scheduling and hosting virtual meetings using zoom, teams & others, seamlessly
  • Demonstrated proactive approaches to problem-solving with strong decision-making capability and emotional maturity
  • Highly resourceful team-player, act with a sense of urgency and ability to also be extremely effective independently
  • Advanced knowledge of MS office products (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Adobe Acrobat, and Social Media platforms, interactive presentation tools like Canva, Prezi preferred
  • Forward looking thinker, highly agile, actively seeks opportunities and proposes solutions
  • Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to take initiative, multi-task; effectively manage up
NMSDC Celebrates August as National Black Business Month

NMSDC Celebrates August as National Black Business Month

Posted on by Deb Johnson

NMSDC is committed in helping enable Black-owned firms and all other certified MBEs for growth

New York, NY – In recognition of the enduring contributions and economic performance of Black-owned businesses, the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), America’s most influential and successful minority business development organization, recognizes August as National Black Business Month.

NMSDC celebrates Black businesses and Black entrepreneurs for their successes, milestones, and historical progress. Despite contending with historical barriers and the hardships from COVID-19, Black-owned businesses have showcased the resilience and acumen that make the dream of economic mobility possible for all Americans.

“At NMSDC, we believe that Black-owned businesses and all certified Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) deserve every opportunity to reach their full potential,” said Ying McGuire, CEO and President of NMSDC. “Diversity, equity, and economic inclusion are in our nation’s interest.”

“We know that the pandemic has impacted MBEs disproportionately harder. As we support and invest in Black-owned businesses, we are investing in the revitalization of the American economy and strengthening underserved communities in the aftermath of COVID-19.”, added McGuire.

The nation’s 2.6 million Black-owned businesses generate more than $150 billion in annual receipts, per U.S. Census information. These business owners have historically experienced barriers to accessing financing and resources critical to business success.  Among business organizations, NMSDC has the strongest track record of delivering a suite of technical assistance, relationships, and contracting opportunities that help MBEs expand capacity and scale operations.

“For nearly 50 years, NMSDC has delivered the support, programming, network, and life-changing certifications that help facilitate the growth and success of Black-owned businesses,” said Jose Turkienicz, NMSDC’s Chairman of the Board “We are strongly committed in helping them and all NMSDC’s certified minority businesses gain access to capital, tap into government and corporate resources and through our year-round development programs, which includes our conferences and business opportunity exchanges”.

NMSDC Certification Offer a Path to Government and Corporate Procurement Opportunities

NMSDC offers MBEs the gold-standard certification that has created pathways to global economic prosperity and access to potential contracting opportunities. NMSDC certification gives MBEs access to top corporate purchasing opportunities.

NMSDC is the only national minority business development organization that provides and guarantees this degree of certification throughout the United States.

Nearly 7-in-10 NMSDC Business Consortium Fund Loans Have Gone to African American Firms

Since 1987, NMSDC Business Consortium Fund has evolved into America’s most comprehensive financing and technical support organization, exclusively serving NMSDC-certified businesses, providing loan programs and consulting services. The consortium has issued more than 1,002 loans and provided more than $225 million to fuel the growth of certified minority-owned companies. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the recipients have been certified African-American firms.

NMSDC Offers Nationwide Support System

NMSDC serves 1,750 corporate Members, including America’s top publicly-owned, privately-owned and foreign-owned companies and supports more than 14,000 minority owned businesses.

For additional information about NMSDC, log on to www.NMSDC.org. For interviews, please call 212-944-2430.

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NMSDC SETS THE STAGE FOR SUCCESS FOR MBEs WITH DYNAMIC NEW TRAINING PROGRAM

Posted on by Deb Johnson

Competition, Collaboration, The Value of Relationships Drive New Center of Excellence Certification Program

Building minority entrepreneur competitiveness through relationship building and collaboration – these are the goals of a game-changing new Center of Excellence Certificate Program (COECP), to prepare emerging minority businesses for greater success in the corporate world, launched in May by the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC).

Partnering with the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development (CUEED) at Rutgers University and Covenant Business Concepts (CBC), NMSDC will work through three of its regional affiliate councils to manage their pilot COECP.

The year-long program will train individual council cohorts of 15-20 Class II (annual sales of $1-$10 million) minority business enterprises (MBEs). Also participating in each cohort will be eight-10 NMSDC corporate members and facilitators/trainers provided by (CBC), a certified MWBE.

Qualified candidates are NMSDC-certified Class II businesses with a minimum of five employees. Participating MBEs must demonstrate the ability to meet the business-critical needs of NMSDC’s corporate members.

COECP is designed to develop and grow certified diverse businesses to compete and be better prepared for the more rigorous vendor requirements currently in use by NMSDC member corporations.

From NMSDC’s perspective, the immediate goal of COECP is to fortify and strengthen the supply chain for its corporate members. Other benefits include:

  • Supporting the growth of NMSDC-certified Class II MBEs;
  • Enhancing opportunities for NMSDC-certified diverse suppliers;
  • Developing a results-focused coaching and mentoring relationship between NMSDC Class II-certified diverse suppliers, corporate members and Corporate Plusâ MBEs;

In the coming year, participants will meet monthly and chart their development through monthly progress and strategic growth plans. They will identify barriers to growth, best practices, and solutions for minority inclusion in the corporate (Fortune 1000) supplier chain, specifically at a regional level.

Subject-matter experts, including Rutgers University professors and NMSDC corporate members, will lead live blended learning classroom instruction via virtual links to remote participants at designated “learning hubs”.

For more information about COECP, contact David.Hamlin@NMSDC.org.

NMSDC advances business opportunities for certified minority business enterprises and connects them to corporate members. To meet the growing need for supplier diversity, NMSDC matches its more than 12,000 certified minority-owned businesses to our network of more than 1,750 corporate members who wish to purchase their products, services and solutions. NMSDC, a unique and specialized player in the field of minority business enterprise, is proud of its unwavering commitment to advance Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American suppliers in a globalized corporate supply chain.

NATIONAL MINORITY SUPPLIER DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL NAMES NEW CHAIRMAN, DR. FREDA LEWIS-HALL

NATIONAL MINORITY SUPPLIER DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL NAMES NEW CHAIRMAN, DR. FREDA LEWIS-HALL

Posted on by Deb Johnson

NATIONAL MINORITY SUPPLIER DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL NAMES NEW CHAIRMAN, DR. FREDA LEWIS-HALL

Dr. Freda Lewis Hall

Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall has been elected Chair of the Board of Directors for the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC). She was elected to a new two-year term during the board’s spring meeting in New York on May 17.

Lewis-Hall is currently Chief Patient Officer and Executive Vice President of Pfizer, Inc.

“It’s an honor to be elected Chair of the Board of Directors for the National Minority Supplier Development Council. I’ve long admired NMSDC’s work to certify, develop, connect, and advocate for minority businesses, and I look forward to continuing its mission supporting industries and corporations to embrace diversity,” said Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall.

During her 35-year career in medicine, Lewis-Hall has been on the frontlines of health care as a clinician, a researcher, and a leader in the biopharmaceuticals and life sciences industries. The common thread throughout has been her passion to advocate for health equity and improved outcomes for all patients.

“I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall as our board chair,” Adrienne Trimble, President and CEO of NMSDC, said. “She brings extensive experience developing programs and initiatives to address barriers in communities of color. I’m sure she will bring that same passion to advance the inclusion of entrepreneurs of color in the corporate supply chain. I look forward to her leadership in steering the NMSDC Board of Directors in supporting the mission and strategic direction of our organization.”

Before joining Pfizer in 2009, Lewis-Hall held senior leadership positions with Vertex, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pharmacia, and Eli Lilly and Company. Prior to joining the biopharmaceuticals and life sciences industries, she served as Vice Chairperson and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Howard University College of Medicine and was an advisor to the National Institute of Mental Health. Lewis-Hall graduated from Johns Hopkins University and earned her medical doctorate at Howard University College of Medicine.

Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall appears regularly on health-related television programs in major global markets, including The Doctors and Dr. Phil. She also shares health and medical information through GetHealthyStayHealthy.com. She currently serves on numerous boards including SpringWorks Therapeutics, Dell Medical School, Harvard Medical School, FasterCures, the Foundation for the NIH, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

NMSDC advances business opportunities for certified minority business enterprises and connects them to corporate members. To meet the growing need for supplier diversity, NMSDC matches its more than 12,000 certified minority-owned businesses to our network of more than 1,750 corporate members who wish to purchase their products, services and solutions. NMSDC, a unique and specialized player in the field of minority business enterprise, is proud of its unwavering commitment to advance Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native American suppliers in a globalized corporate supply chain.