Procurement Executives, Minority Business Owners Top List Of Speakers At 2012 NMSDC Conference

DENVER, Oct. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Corporate and minority business chief executive officers, chief procurement officers and supplier diversity professionals are among the featured speakers headlining the 2012 NMSDC Conference and Business Opportunity Fair in Denver, Colorado.  The four-day event will take place at the Colorado Convention Center beginning Sunday, October 28. Nearly 7,000 supplier diversity professionals, procurement executives, and Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American business owners are expected to attend.  The theme of the Conference is "Minority Businesses and Corporate America:  Advancing Minority Suppliers in the Global Supply Chain."

"Our roster of speakers represents the top corporate executives, supplier diversity professionals, and minority business owners and advocates," said NMSDC President Joset B. Wright. "We are pleased to have them join us to offer their insights and perspective on minority supplier development as part our collective efforts to help strengthen minority businesses so they are prepared to compete and succeed in the global marketplace."

The conference program opens Monday, October 29, with a Power Breakfast featuring Bill Imada, founder, chairman and chief collaboration officer of the IW Group. Mr. Imada, who blogs for Advertising Age, has more than 20 years of experience in marketing, public relations, advertising and training. He and his company represent some of the top global and domestic brands, including American Airlines, Bank of the West/BNP Paribas, the Coca-Cola Company, Farmers Insurance, Jurlique, Kaiser Permanente, McDonald's, MetLife and Pacific Gas & Electric Company.

The one-day Business Opportunity Fair—the ideal venue for deal-making—follows the Power Breakfast. It will be open for a morning session, close for lunch and reopen for an afternoon session. The featured speakers for the interview-style luncheon are David H. Segura, founder and chief executive officer of the IT management firm VisionIT, and his mentor David Steward, co-founder and chairman of World Wide Technology Inc., a market-leading systems integrator and supply chain solutions provider.

The conference program resumes Tuesday with a Networking Continental Breakfast, where attendees can make new business connections and build on established relationships. A plenary session titled Real World Supply Chain Management follows.  Jill Bossi, vice president and chief procurement officer of supply chain and real estate management at The American Red Cross will moderate a panel featuring Christine Krathwohl, executive director, global logistics and supplier diversity at General Motors Company; Quentin L. Roach, chief procurement officer and senior vice president, global procurement, external manufacturing and supplier development and performance management at Bristol-Myers Squibb; and Ric Schneider, senior vice president, global procurement at Starbucks Coffee Company.  

Clifton L. Taulbert, founder and president of the Building Community Institute, is the speaker at the Tuesday luncheon. Since founding his human capital development and organizational consulting firm, the Pulitzer-nominated author has written 13 books and served as a guest professor at Harvard University, the Darden School of Business, the University of Virginia and the United States Air Force Academy.

A Networking Continental Breakfast leads the day on Wednesday, followed by a plenary session titled View from the Top: The Future of Minority Business Development. NMSDC Vice Chairman Shelley Stewart, Jr., who is vice president of sourcing and logistics and chief procurement officer at DuPont Company, will moderate the session. The featured speakers are David Hernandez, chief executive officer of Liberty Power, a minority-owned business, and Keith E. Wandell, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Harley-Davidson Inc.  Jacqueline Pata, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the oldest and largest American Indian and Alaska Native advocacy organization in the United States, is the featured speaker at Wednesday's Luncheon. She is a member of the Raven/Sockeye Clan of the Tlingit Tribe (pronounced Kling-get) and of the Central Council of the Tlingit-Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.  Ms. Pata advocates on behalf of tribal governments and communities, promoting strong tribal-federal nation-to-nation policies and a better understanding among the general public regarding American Indian and Alaska Native governments, people and rights.

The conference includes a leadership development series with separate tracks for NMSDC Regional Council presidents, minority business owners and supplier diversity professionals, as well as 20 educational workshops covering a variety of topics related to developing strong minority suppliers, creating and maintaining a world-class supplier diversity process, global supply chain management, and more. Panelists represent more than 45 member corporations such as BP America, Boeing, CitiGroup, Colgate-Palmolive, Delta Air Lines, Ford Motor Company, Harley-Davidson, Ingersoll Rand Company, IBM, General Motors, Pacific Gas Starbucks, Toyota, and Wells Fargo.

The conference culminates Wednesday night with a black-tie Awards Banquet that will honor the Corporation, Suppliers, Minority Supplier Development Leader and Council of the Year. The conference is co-hosted by the Rocky Mountain Minority Supplier Development Council, one of NMSDC's 36 local affiliates around the country.

For additional information on the 2012 NMSDC Conference and Business Opportunity Fair or minority business development, call the National Minority Supplier Development Council at (212) 944-2430 or visit the Web site at www.nmsdc.org.

About NMSDC

The National Minority Supplier Development Council advances business opportunities for certified Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American business enterprises and connects them to corporate members. One of the country's leading corporate membership organizations, NMSDC was chartered in 1972 to provide increased procurement and business opportunities for minority businesses of all sizes. The organization is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

The NMSDC Network includes a National Office in New York and 36 regional councils across the country. There are 3,500 corporate members throughout the network, including most of America's largest publicly-owned, privately-owned and foreign-owned companies, as well as universities, hospitals and other buying institutions. The regional councils certify and match 16,000 minority-owned businesses with member corporations that want to purchase their products and services.

SOURCE National Minority Supplier Development Council