Speakers at the 2008 Inner City 100 Summit Kay Bills Kay Bills grew up in The new company was one of the few minority computer and telecommunication companies in 1991. She applied for and received her 8(a) certification November 17, 1992. Her company was the first telecommunication company to be certified in the 8(a) program in SBA Region 10. In 1997, she partnered with an Alaskan Native Corporation, Chugach In May 2005, she accepted a position with the Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency. This Office is mandated by Congress under Title 25: Chapter 44—Native American Business Development, Trade Promotion, and Tourism Act. Kay Bills is the primary point of contact for private sector investors interested in doing business in Indian Country. In addition, the Office serves as the intergovernmental contact for other federal agencies working with tribes. Kay Bills has built federal collaborative partnerships across the federal government and was instrumental in the formation of the White House’s Indian Affairs Executive Working Group. This group successfully created a training program for all federal employees to learn about their trust responsibilities to Indian tribes and Alaska Natives. Kay Bills lives in Ray Bjorklund Ray Bjorklund has more than three decades hands-on experience in federal IT program management and procurement processes. He specializes in identifying market factors, technology trends, and strategic solutions to help clients posture for success in the government marketplace. Since joining Federal Sources in June 1998, he has led several in-depth market analyses and written market technology reports, in addition to serving immediate client needs for strategic insight into new market directions. He is regularly quoted in regional and national trade publications. At the Defense Information Systems Agency, Ray Bjorklund conducted strategic planning, reformed and streamlined DISA procurement processes, and personally reviewed over 700 large procurements. Through the review system he established and then led for three years, Ray played a key role in awarding and administering several multi-billion-dollar defense-wide telecommunications, engineering services, and integration contracts, as well as over $4 billion in other IT contracts. From 1991 to 1995, Ray managed several USAF development and production programs for command, control, and communications systems at the USAF Electronic Systems Center. He downsized and re-engineered program offices, while modernizing the nation's attack warning capability in Cheyenne Mountain and at other locations. Ray also directed several military satellite communications programs. Additionally, he bought and deployed theater command and control systems for more than 80 sites worldwide. Ray developed policy and plans for satellite communications resources at Headquarters USAF from 1985 to 1989. In dealing with numerous command and control and joint force structure issues there at the Pentagon, he developed new methods for apportioning limited satellite capacity. During the previous three years, Ray was a systems engineer for a multi-billion dollar developmental satellite communications system at the USAF Space and Missile Center. He wrote the general systems engineering work statement and communications technical performance criteria for the satellite -- as part of a team that composed and released the RFP in six weeks. Audrey Goins Brichi Audrey Goins Brichi is manager of Strategy, Planning and Coordination for Midstream Procurement at Chevron Corporation in San Ramon California. In this role she ensures that procurement processes, measured value levers and category management activities are strengthened in the midstream organization, which consists of some 25 operating companies and service organizations. Prior to this assignment she was responsible for the management, and coordination of Chevron’s global procurement activities with diverse (small, minority, women-owned and locally-owned) businesses. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Ms. Brichi attended Auburn University on the William Crawford Gorgas Scholarship for outstanding science students in Alabama graduating with B. S. and M. S. degrees in biological sciences. Audrey is also a graduate of the WP Carey School of Business at Arizona State University with a Masters in Business Administration in Supply Chain Management. Audrey has held positions in environmental health and safety at Chevron’s Pascagoula Mississippi and Richmond California refineries and in the corporation’s environmental affairs group. She has also served as Chevron’s Public Affairs’ liaison with national environmental and consumer affairs organizations and managed the Corporation’s Community Programs’ staff. Following an assignment managing contributions and community development for Chevron’s international external affairs group, she joined Corporate Procurement and assumed her current position. Tom Cochran Tom Cochran is Executive Director and CEO of The United States Conference of Mayors, the official nonpartisan organization representing mayors and cities over 30,000 in population. He has served the organization for over 30 years since 1969. Under his broad range of responsibilities as Executive Director and CEO, Mr. Cochran: Serves as President of the Conference of Mayors Research and Education Foundation Prior to joining the Conference of Mayors, Mr. Cochran served in the office of Economic Opportunity, Executive office of the President under the directorship of Sargent Shriver. He was director of Congressional Relations for the Job Corps and in that capacity received several awards for outstanding service. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia. Mr. Cochran enjoys a variety, of interests, including the arts, music, movies, literature, and cooking. He is the father of three sons, Tom, John and Alexander. His wife Carlotta has two daughters, Ansleigh and Havalynn, and one son, Harold. From this group they have twelve (12) grandchildren: nine grandsons, Wells and Lawton Jones, twins William and Jackson Riddle, Jake Riddle, Samuel Adams, John Alexander Cochran, II, Jonah Jason Cochran, and John Colm Cochran, and three granddaughters, Martin Lane Cochran, Olivia Grace Jones, and Abigail Adams. Manuel A. Diaz First elected in 2001 and re-elected to a second term in 2005, Manny Diaz has led Miami toward a renaissance of prosperity and opportunity. Having never before held elected office, Mayor Diaz is now recognized as one of America’s most innovative Mayors, chosen to lead the United States Conference of Mayors as its president beginning in the Summer of 2008. When he first took office, Miami city government was bankrupt, held junk bond status, and was under a state financial oversight board. Mayor Diaz pursued a vast administrative overhaul that brought with it financial stability, healthy level of financial reserves, continued tax cuts, lowered millage rates, and an A+ bond rating on Wall Street. The City further lowered costs, improved performance and introduced private sector business approaches that have lead to better service delivery and recognition awards for several city departments. Internal operational excellence has allowed Mayor Diaz to pursue capital reinvestment and quality of life initiatives in long abandoned and forgotten neighborhoods. Plans include a billion dollar Capital Improvement Plan that will rebuild the city’s infrastructure without levying new taxes and Miami 21 (http://www.miami21.org/), a revolutionary land use and zoning master plan that incorporates new urbanism and smart growth. Guided by principles of conservancy and sustainability, Mayor Diaz has launched an expansive effort to “green” the city, erasing decades of environmental neglect. He is a signatory to the Mayor’s Climate Protection agreement, pledging to reduce global warming emissions. Diaz has also promoted “Green Building” throughout the City and has pledged to convert the city fleet to hybrid or other fuel efficient vehicles by 2012. His efforts have earned him recognition by Vanity Fair Magazine as one of North America’s leading environmental conscious Mayors. Nabil N. El-Hage Nabil N. El-Hage is a Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School in the Finance Area. He first joined the HBS faculty in 1984, immediately after obtaining his MBA from the School, and taught the required MBA finance course in 1984-85. Prior to returning to HBS in 2003, El-Hage gained experience in private equity and venture capital with TA Associates and Advent International, as well as on the operating side, as CFO of Back Bay Restaurant Group. He also served as Chairman and CEO of Jeepers! Inc., a private equity-financed national chain of indoor theme parks with $40 million in revenues, for nearly ten years. El-Hage also has experience with McKinsey & Company, Inc., where he was a Research Consultant before business school. El-Hage has served on a dozen boards of private and public companies, ranging from start-ups to over $200 million in revenues. He has served as president of the Yale Club of Boston from 2005 until June 2007. He is currently the independent Chairman of the MassMutual Premier Funds, a $13 billion mutual fund complex. Joy Errico As community relations manager, Joy Errico is responsible for all of Staples’ international and national community relations programs. In this role, Ms. Errico directs giving through Staples Foundation for Learning, Inc., Staples’ charitable arm that funds programs that provide job training or educational opportunities for all people, with a special emphasis on disadvantaged youth. Ms. Errico also manages relationships with each of the company’s charitable partners, which include Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Ashoka, Earth Force, Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and Hispanic Heritage Foundation. Staples Foundation for Learning works to make a positive difference in the communities where customer and associates live and work. To date, the Foundation has provided over $12 million in grants to hundreds of non-profit organizations across the United States. Through its partnership with Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), the Foundation supports the Inner City 100. Together, the Foundation and ICIC have helped develop inner-city businesses into successful companies employing many underserved people and creating economic growth in America’s urban communities. David G. Latimore President and CEO, ICIC
David G. Latimore, President and CEO for the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, brings a wealth of business and community experience to the position. With more than fifteen years of success in business and community development, he has a background well suited to advance ICIC’s mission of transforming inner city communities through private sector engagement and business-led economic development. A native of St. Louis, Mr. Latimore graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Economics in 1990. He began his career as an Associate Consultant for Bain & Company. David then served as Chief Operating Officer of Emerging Manager Trust Group, a startup company based in New Orleans helping minority-owned asset management firms grow and prosper. David then held a series of increasingly senior positions in the pension management field, serving as Vice President and Group Manager of Sales and Marketing for the Mercantile Bancorporation, Marketing Executive for The Vanguard Group, Director of Research and Sales at Hartford Life, and Managing Vice President of the ICMA Retirement Corporation. In 1996, the St. Louis Business Journal named him as one of the “Top 40 Business Leaders Under 40”. Throughout his business career, David was dedicated to economic development and community activities. He served as Executive Assistant to the Mayor, and later Consultant for the St. Louis Development Corporation. He was Senior Pastor for a 200-member congregation at the Southern Union Baptist Church, and a volunteer in the St. Louis Public School system. Recently, Mr. Latimore earned his Master’s in Divinity from the Duke University Divinity School. As part of his training, he served as the interim Senior Pastor for a 500-member congregation at the Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Gainesville, Florida. In this role, he was responsible for a 100 unit low-income housing development, a life skills training program, and strategic partnerships with Santa Fe Community College and the City of Gainesville. Larry Lucchino Larry Lucchino was named President/CEO of the Red Sox at the closing of the purchase of the team in February, 2002. Previously President/CEO of the Baltimore Orioles (1988-93) and the San Diego Padres (1995-01), Lucchino is a veteran of 28 years in Major League Baseball. With the Red Sox, Lucchino manages the franchise on a day-to-day basis with the active involvement of, and in collaboration with, Principal Owner John W. Henry and Chairman Tom Werner. He has won rings with each franchise. The Orioles won the 1983 World Series, the Padres won the 1998 pennant, and the Red Sox won the 2007 World Series, just three years after the 2004 World Championship that put an end to Boston’s 86-year championship drought. In his 18 full seasons as a President/CEO, his clubs have a winning record of 1,526-1,371 (.527), have reached post-season play six times (1996, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007), have won three pennants, and two World Series. In those 18 years, attendance has improved over the previous year 13 times and the franchises have set club attendance records 11 times, including the last 6 straight years. Each of the three franchises for which he has served as chief executive has established a charitable foundation during his tenure (The Orioles Foundation, The Padres Foundation, and The Red Sox Foundation). Under his leadership, each franchise has re-invigorated its philanthropy, its community relations efforts, and its ballpark ambiance to ensure that all fans feel welcome. Thomas M. Menino Thomas M. Menino is serving his fourth term as Mayor of the City of Boston. The first Italian-American Mayor of Boston, he was elected to his first term on November 2, 1993, winning 64 percent of the vote and 18 of the city's 22 wards. Mayor Menino was re-elected to a second term without opposition in 1997 and won a third term in a landslide victory in November 2001. Most recently, Mayor Menino won a historic fourth election in November, 2005 with 68 percent of the vote. Prior to his election in 1993, he previously served four months as Acting Mayor and nine years as a District City Councilor from Boston's Hyde Park neighborhood. A lifelong resident of Hyde Park, Mayor Menino is a graduate of St. Thomas Aquinas High School. In 1963, Mayor Menino earned an associate's degree in business management and advertising and sales from Chamberlayne Junior College. In 1988, he earned a degree in community planning from the University of Massachusetts. Mayor Menino and his wife, the former Angela Faletra, have two children, Susan and Thomas, Jr., and six grandchildren. During his tenure as Mayor of Boston, Mayor Menino has worked hard to improve the quality of life for all of Boston's 589,000 residents. As President of the United States Conference of Mayors from 2002-2003, Mayor Menino championed homeland security and housing availability. He has been an advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation since 1989. In the summer of 2004, Mayor Menino brought the Democratic National Convention to Boston. The convention put a national spotlight on Boston, showcasing all that Boston has to offer. Estimates put the economic contribution of the convention at more than $150 million dollars and its positive effects will be felt for years. Mayor Menino's reputation for getting the job done has earned him a high approval rating among Boston residents. Among his main priorities, are: providing every child with a quality education; creating affordable housing; lowering the crime rate; revitalizing Boston's neighborhoods; and promoting a healthy lifestyle for all city residents. Melanie Mortimer Melanie Mortimer is Director of Global Philanthropy at Merrill Lynch, a leading global wealth management, capital markets and advisory company with an annual philanthropic giving portfolio of $44 million, nearly half of which supports education. Mortimer joined Merrill Lynch in 1999 and oversees the firm’s global signature programs and innovative partnerships with hundreds of organizations reaching millions of young people from ethnically diverse and underserved populations, enabling them to better compete and succeed in the global marketplace. The programs combine employee involvement, grants to nonprofit organizations, and cross-sector partnerships specifically to support youth entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and global citizenship. Mortimer also oversees volunteer initiatives for the firm, helps coordinate major disaster relief campaigns, and handles the company’s arts and culture grants. She manages the McCarthy Scholarship program for children of employees. Mortimer’s professional career began as an editor and writer and eventually Senior Editor for Tokyo Journal Magazine. Subsequently, she joined ITOCHU Academy in Tokyo, Japan as an intercultural communications coach and management trainer for international executive delegations. She then worked for one of Japan’s largest companies, ITOCHU Corporation, a multi-billion dollar, global trading firm, where she managed the global communications desk, including media relations and internal, external and shareholder communications. Mortimer earned her undergraduate degree in English from Agnes Scott College, her Japanese studies degree from Osaka Gaikokugo Daigaku and a Master’s of Business Administration from Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. Mortimer’s international interests led her to study in Japan and work there for a total of nine years, enabling her to master Japanese and travel across Asia. Mortimer currently serves on the boards of the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers and the Association for Corporate Contributions Professionals. Das Narayandas Das Narayandas is the James J. Hill Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is currently the Co-Chair of Harvard Business School Executive Education's Program for Leadership Development. His academic credentials include a Bachelor of Technology degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, and a Ph.D. in Management from Purdue University. Das's background includes over six years of management experience in sales and marketing for various multinational firms that involved field sales and salesforce management, new product development, alliance formation, and marketing communications. His articles have appeared in publications that include Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Service Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research, and Sloan Management Review. Das has been quoted in publications such as The Economist and U.S. World News and Report amongst others. Das has consulted and/or developed and executed in-house training programs for such companies as Areva, Arrow Electronics, Alghanim Group, GE, Honeywell, IBM, ING, Oce, J&J, Brambles, Northrop Grumman, RBS, Stryker, Merrill Lynch, Tata Group, ThyssenKrupp, Fidelity, Satyam, Liberty Mutual, 3M, Microsoft, Nortel, Praxair among other companies in the areas of B2B Marketing, Customer Management, Strategic Marketing, Pricing, Personal Selling and Sales Management. Das's current research interests focus on business-to-business marketing and management of customer relationships. In addition to being on the Board of Advisors of several firms, Das is a member of the Board of Directors of Satmetrix and New England Peptides Corporation. Linda Bithell Oliver Linda Oliver is the Deputy Director at the Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs. She is responsible for establishing and enforcing Department of Defense policies that encourage the Department to provide opportunities for small businesses to successfully compete for Defense contracts. In that capacity she works with the military departments and with the Defense agencies to ensure that the policies and programs established by the Defense Department are properly carried out. She is also responsible for providing advice on proposed legislation. She and her staff suggest legislation that will help small businesses, and they analyze legislative proposals for potential effect on small businesses, negotiating changes and improvements where possible. She came to the Department of Defense from the Office of Management and Budget where she served as the Associate Administrator for Procurement Law, Legislation and Innovation in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. In this position she advised on procurement policy for the Federal government. She and her staff reviewed all Federal procurement legislation, Executive Orders and regulations, in addition to dealing with issues concerning labor, economic and social programs and international matters related to Federal procurement policy. Ms. Oliver was an attorney with the Department of the Navy for the 12 years preceding her assumption of duties at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. Her Navy positions included a tour at the Pentagon where she was Assistant General Counsel at the Office of the General Counsel, a tour at the Naval Air Systems Command, and she served as Counsel at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. She has also held attorney positions at the Naval Research Laboratory, the Naval Electronic Systems Engineering Center, San Diego, and at the Office of Naval Research. Prior to joining the Government, she was in private practice in Honolulu, HI and in Bremerton, WA. Otis Pannell Otis Pannell is Senior Vice President of Sales & Operations of Staples for the Mid-Atlantic Southeast Division, which includes Southern New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, District Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. He began his career with Staples as a General Manager in 1989. Otis opened Staples’ first mall store in Springfield, VA, and the company’s first store on the West Coast. Through the years, he has moved into progressively responsible positions including District Manager, Director of Store Operations and Regional Vice President. Otis continues to be recognized for his outstanding reputation as a results-oriented leader focused on helping his store team with their individual and collective development. Michael E. Porter Michael E. Porter is a leading authority on competitive strategy, the competitiveness and economic development of nations, states, and regions, and the application of competitive principles to social problems such as health care, the environment, and corporate responsibility. He is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, based at Harvard Business School. A University professorship is the highest professional recognition that can be awarded to a Harvard faculty member. In 2001, Harvard Business School and Harvard University jointly created the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, dedicated to furthering Professor Porter’s work. Professor Porter is generally recognized as the father of the modern strategy field, as has been identified in a variety of rankings and surveys as the world’s most influential thinker on management and competitiveness. He is the author of 17 books and over 125 articles. He received a B.S.E. with high honors in aerospace and mechanical engineering from Princeton University in 1969, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi. He received an M.B.A. with high distinction in 1971 from the Harvard Business School, where he was a George F. Baker Scholar, and a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University in 1973.. Anoop Prakash Anoop Prakash is the Associate Administrator for Entrepreneurial Development for the U.S. Small Business Administration. In this capacity, he manages SBA’s technical assistance programs providing training and business counseling for over 1.4 million small business clients annually. An additional 1+ million clients each year benefit from information and tools available on SBA’s Website. With a budget of $106 million, his office provides these services through a variety of business development networks across the nation. Small business education programs are offered at major state universities through more than 1,000 Small Business Development Centers (SBDC’s) and over 10,500 SCORE volunteers provide counseling and mentoring to new and in-business entrepreneurs. The small business owner can also receive training and counseling 24/7 through all of the programs including, online courses offered through the agency’s Small Business Training Network (www.sba.gov/training). In addition, the office of Women’s Business Ownership has 99 Women’s Business Centers in key communities nationally providing assistance to women business owners with a special emphasis on assisting economically disadvantaged woman clients. Prior to joining the SBA, Mr. Prakash was vice president for strategy & business development at the Lexis Nexis Special Services Group, Inc. in Washington, DC. In this position, he was responsible for strategic planning, market development, marketing, strategic alliances and acquisitions. Mr. Prakash, prior to Lexis Nexis held various senior positions in the private sector. These positions included director of business development for Siebel Systems, Inc. and management consultant for McKinsey & Company, where he focused on business-building and change management projects. A former Marine, Mr. Prakash served as a captain, deploying to the Persian Gulf region as the Air Combat Element intelligence officer with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He currently serves as chairman of the board for Brainfood, a non-profit youth development organization in Washington, DC. David Meerman Scott David Meerman Scott is a recovering VP of marketing for two publicly traded technology companies and was also Asia Marketing Director for Knight-Ridder, at the time one of the world’s largest newspaper and electronic information companies. He is now an online thought leadership and viral marketing strategist and the programs he has developed have won numerous awards and are responsible for selling over $1 billion in products and services worldwide. David is the author of the number one best selling PR and marketing book The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, viral marketing and online media to reach buyers directly which is being published in 12 languages. He developed the New Rules of Marketing™ course for Pragmatic Marketing, Inc. based on his book. David has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Boston, and Hong Kong and has presented at industry conferences and events in over twenty countries on four continents. Check out his blog at www.WebInkNow.com or download his free ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free at http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/documents/Viral_Marketing.pdf. James K. Sebenius James K. Sebenius specializes in analyzing and advising on complex negotiations. He holds the first Gordon Donaldson Professorship of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. In 1993, he took the lead in the School's decision--unique among major business schools--to make negotiation a required course in the MBA Program and to create a Negotiation Unit (department) which he headed for several years. Formerly an Associate Professor on the faculty of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Sebenius also currently serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School. In 1982, he co-founded and still directs the Negotiation Roundtable, an ongoing forum in which hundreds of varied negotiations have been examined to extract their most valuable lessons. Drawing on this and extensive advisory experience, he co-authored (with David Lax) 3-D Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in Your Most Important Deals (HBS Press, 2006). A previous collaboration with Lax produced The Manager as Negotiator (The Free Press, 1986). He is also the author of Negotiating the Law of the Sea (Harvard University Press), co-editor of various works, and author of a number of academic and popular articles as well as field case studies. Sebenius left Harvard in the mid-1980s to work full-time for investment banker Peter G. Peterson, co-founder with Stephen Schwarzman of the New York-based Blackstone Group, now one of the world's leading merchant banking and private equity firms. For several years following Blackstone's launch, Sebenius worked closely with Peterson and Schwarzman, initially as vice president, and later as Special Adviser to the firm after returning to Harvard. Sebenius served from 1976 to 1977 as assistant to Robert White, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, and from 1977 to 1980 with the State Department on the U.S. Delegation to the Law of the Sea negotiations led by Elliot Richardson. In 1989, the Japanese Junior Chamber of Commerce (Osaka) selected Sebenius as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (under 40) from around the world, in 1984, he was elected a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He also served as advisor to the Select Automotive Panel, a joint U.S.-Canadian body, established following the U.S. Canadian Free Trade Agreement to deal with outstanding auto trade issues. He was a member of the Auto Parts Advisory Committee, United States Department of Commerce (appointed by the Secretary of Commerce). Sebenius is a founder and principal of Lax Sebenius: The Negotiation Group LLC, a firm that provides negotiation advisory services to corporations and governments worldwide. Jerry D. Smith, Sr. Jerry Smith joined the GSA team in May 2005, as an IT Project Manager. He was re-assigned as the Manager of Network Services Operations and Regional Coordinator for Emergency Communications in December of 2005. He was assigned as the Director, Small Business Utilization Center (SBUC) in Dec 2007. Mr. Smith is a Service Disabled Veteran who served 24 years on active duty with the US Air Force as a Fixed and Tactical Communications Systems Manager, Secure Communications Systems Engineer, Combat Communications and IT Systems Installation Team Chief, Secure Switch Technician/Engineer, Quality Assurance Manager, NATO Survival to Operate (Emergency Management) Trainer, and as a United Nations Emergency Communications Planner. After retiring from the Air Force 2000, he worked in the wireless communications industry as an Advanced Wireless Technology Trainer for SPRINT Mobile Communications. He also spent time in the IT industry as an IT Project Manager, Training Consultant, Value Added Reseller (VAR) Relations Manager, Business Line Developer and a Special Events Coordinator for several small business start-up companies in Oklahoma City, OK. In this capacity he provided professional IT services and designed Voice over Internet (VOIP) telecom systems for customers including Department Of Defense, Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Federal Aviation Administration. In his capacity as Director of the New England Region’s SBUC, Mr. Smith manages GSA small business outreach and educational programs through out the region. The SBUC acts as advocate for businesses presently doing business, or interested in doing business, with GSA and other Federal agencies. The SBUC also acts as a liaison to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the state Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTAC) located in each state. Mr. Smith holds and AAA in Electronic Systems Technology from the Community College of the Air Fore; BAAS in Electronic Engineering Technology from Texas State University; and a MS in Human Relations, specializing in workplace diversity, from the University of Oklahoma. He also holds advance training certificates as a Federal Workplace Mediator, IT & Telecommunications Operations Management, DOD IT Network Design Engineer, DOD Academic Instructor, Process Improvement Analyst, Contract Administration, Project/Program Management, and National Security Agency (NSA) Cryptographic Systems Installation and Maintenance Team Chief. Sandye R. Taylor In the Supplier Diversity role, Ms. Taylor is responsible for ensuring that opportunities to participate in the bidding and procurement process are provided to diverse owned businesses. She collaborates with the firm’s commodity managers, business and industry leaders, and various diversity councils to identify certified minority, woman-owned and disadvantaged business enterprises fully qualified to provide goods and/or services to Merrill Lynch. Ms. Taylor also heads the Environmental Sustainability initiative for the procurement organization. In this capacity she serves on the implementation team of Merrill Lynch’s Environmental Sustainability led by Merrill Lynch President and Chief Operating Officer Gregory J. Fleming. She is responsible for establishing, documenting and communicating sustainability initiatives related to procurement. Ms. Taylor has been with Merrill Lynch for four years and during that time was a commodity manager for mainframe and distributed software. Her duties included negotiating technology deals ensuring that agreements met the firm’s technical and legal standards. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, Ms. Taylor was a manager for Telcordia Technologies, a New Jersey-based company that designed and developed infrastructure for corporations to maintain and expand their computer networks. Ms. Taylor was awarded the inaugural Merrill Lynch Global Corporate Services Pinnacle Award in 2007, in recognition of her outstanding achievements in delivering innovative business results and creating sustained value above and beyond her responsibilities. She has also been recognized personally for her commitment to driving diversity-related business results. In 2007 she was named to The Network Journal's annual "25 Influential Black Women in Business" list. Ms. Taylor, a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Law, also practiced law with private law firms, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland at College Park. Check back for additional speaker information. |