Diversity Discourse

Episode 6 – The Importance of Legacy for Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses

As entrepreneurs approach retirement, they have important choices to make about the future of their businesses—such as whether to sell, close a business down, or pass it on to a family member. 
But for the founders of minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBEs), this succession planning takes on a deeper significance. Owners might want their business to maintain minority or female ownership, or to continue serving a community that has always supported them. Parents might view their business as a family legacy that can generate wealth for generations to come.  
Monty Bruell, a partner at business consulting firm Oaklyn Consulting, has more than 25 years’ experience as an entrepreneur, business consultant and investment advisor. In this episode, Monty discusses why legacy and succession planning are especially important for MWBEs.

Episode 5 - I’m Certified, Now What?

Guests: Heather Cox and Liz Whitehead, Diversity Masterminds. They’ll discuss their joint venture  Diversity Masterminds, an 8-part  series designed to help minority and women business owners strategically leverage their national diversity certification.

Episode 4 - Certification Matters for Minority and Women Business Owners

Guest: Heather Cox, Certify My Company. Governments and corporations throughout the U.S. often set aside a certain percentage of their contract budgets for minority- and women-owned businesses. However, there’s often a requirement that these businesses be certified as minority and/or women-owned. Heather Cox, the co-founder and president of Certify My Company, discusses what certification is, the process to get certified and the advantages and benefits of certification.

Episode 3 - Destination: Financial Wellness with BC Holdings

Guests: Sidney and Saundra Curry, BC Holdings. They have created an online comprehensive financial learning management system that has more than 230 mini-lessons in topics such as wealth management planning, goal setting, and investment education. Today, we speak with them on empowering people to build, manage, maintain and grow their individual bottom lines.

Episode 2 - Supplier Diversity and Creating Partnerships with Diverse Businesses.

Guest: Ingrid Watkins, IW Consulting. There are very few people who understand all of the various perspectives and nuances of supplier diversity more than Ingrid Watkins, the principal and chief diversity strategist at IW Consulting Group, an Atlanta-based consulting firm, specializing in corporate diversity program solutions to some of the country’s top corporations. Before launching her own firm, Ingrid spent more than 15 years of her corporate career advocating for the utilization of minority owned businesses in contract opportunities at The Coca-Cola Company. Join us as we discuss some of the challenges corporations face in creating supplier diversity programs that move the needle beyond meeting spend goals as well as what they can do to developing long-term partnerships with diverse businesses.

Episode 1 - Welcome to Diversity Discourse

Whether in the workplace or the supply chain, inclusion and diversity are focused, hot-button issues for the majority of corporations. And as the national culture shifts, we aim to discuss some of those issues on this podcast. In our inaugural episode, Tanya Isley, publisher of MBE Magazine, and Brian Martin, the founder of BriStar Collective and a member of the Human Rights Campaign’s National Board of Governors as well as the HRC’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Liaison for the Las Vegas community, discuss what to expect on the diversity discourse journey.