This award recognizes an individual who has exemplified a dedicated, long and distinguished service in Supplier Diversity, and supporting and inspiring others to support diverse owned businesses to enable them to grow and thrive. Recipients of this award may come from the private, public, or nonprofit sectors. The award seeks to elevate their contributions which have made a lasting impact on the industry while partnering with Capital One to advance our Supplier Diversity and to meet our mission of Changing banking for Good.
Sandra Eberhard , President & CEO, WBEC Metro NY & Greater DMV
Sandra Eberhard is such an individual. Her presence at The Summit is an example of the partnership that we at Capital One have enjoyed over the years advocating and supporting WBE’s. We knew how busy Sandra was with her event in NY the next morning, and yet, she prioritized and found a way to be here to support our event.
Sandra leads the WBEC Metro NY & Greater DMV, a regional affiliate of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the nation’s leading advocate of women-owned businesses and third-party certification organization. Certifying more than 2,500 businesses each year, Sandra’s operations support women business enterprises that generate more than $7.1 billion dollars in revenue and employ more than 45,000 workers in the Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. territory and $26.1 billion in revenue and employ more than 79,000 workers in New York State, Northern New Jersey, Southern Connecticut. To us at Capital One, she is a friend, a thoughtful partner, and counsel that we reach out to discuss matters of grave importance to Supplier Diversity. With her partnership, Capital One developed SAGE, a best in class developmental program supporting WBE’s. Thank you Sandra for your partnership over the years. We wish you a happy and sound retirement.
WATCH VIDEO >This award honors the diverse supplier who has provided significant contributions in promoting and sustaining diversity & inclusion, as well as meets and exceeds Capital One line of business needs. This award is presented to an existing Capital One diverse supplier who does superior work and pays it forward by utilizing fellow diverse suppliers in their supply chain.
Kane Printing , Kane Printing accepted by Anne Kane, President, Kane Printing
We have had the pleasure of working with this Kane Printing over the past 7 years with our Threads Program, (the ‘uniform’ look in our Branches and Cafés). We were in need of onboarding a vendor that understood the intent and overall goal of where we wanted to take our THREADS program. We interviewed several prospects, butKane Printing and their team stood out and seemed to understand not only what needed to be done to make it sustainable, but exactly where we could go with it overall. Over the past 7 years we have not only made the program adaptable and sustainable, but it is now a brand in itself. THREADS laid the foundation and is just one of the many programs we have developed in our past 7 years working together. Their communication, attention to detail, and commitment to ensuring that every item is perfect does not go unnoticed. They proactively reach out to us when something happens (late delivery, incorrect print, etc) so there are never any surprises in addition to fixing the issue and making it right. They will always make certain that they respond immediately (even if they are on vacation or a “I see this, but need a day to respond ” response) so we never need to worry that our requests go unnoticed. In our 7 years working with the team, their professionalism and commitment continues to expand and we look forward to seeing the new work we develop in the coming years.
WATCH VIDEO >This award honors the non-diverse supplier who has provided significant contributions in promoting and sustaining diversity & inclusion in the communities where we live and work, as well as serves as a thought partner with Capital One concerning Supplier Diversity. This award is presented to a non-diverse supplier who does superior work and utilizes diverse suppliers in their supply chain.
Brandito , Brandito, accepted by Anne Barrett Mayfield, Enterprise Account Manager
Brandito consistently goes above and beyond in their performance with Capital One. Any time we have presented them with new goals or challenges, they have jumped right in and run with it. One example is when we set a goal of increasing our diverse spend in 2021. Brandito has increased the diverse suppliers they use on our Company Store by 622% (from 9% in 2021 to 56% currently) and increased the average monthly diverse spend for Capital One by 471% (from 7% in 2021 to 33% currently) and they now partner with at least 1 supplier from every currently reported diverse category on The Company Store, including Asian-owned, Woman-owned, Black-owned, Veteran-owned, LGBTQ+-owned, Disabled-person owned, Hispanic-owned, and additional multiple minorities represented-owned.
We also heard feedback from associates that The Company Store would feel more inclusive with gender-neutral options and this supplier partnered with us to launch (and now consistently update) a gender-inclusive collection on the store in 2022.
In addition,Brandito’s fulfillment accuracy is 99.997% (which is unheard of in this industry), due to their innovative QA processes and team building/education that they initiated.
This award honors the Capital One ESM associate who demonstrates a sustained commitment to the inclusion of diverse-owned businesses in our supply chain, and engages and supports Supplier Diversity initiatives such as developmental programs.
James Mercer , Capital One Senior Manager, Supply Chain
James Mercer is a beacon for Supplier Diversity advocacy. Recognizing the importance of understanding and supporting diverse suppliers,James has organized multiple Tier II spend discussions with US Card suppliers. These sessions provided a platform for suppliers to discuss their best practices and opportunities for Tier II spend. James also played a pivotal role in identifying and including diverse suppliers in the US Card Envelope / Component RFP (over half of the candidates were diverse suppliers). He ensured that our sourcing efforts reflect our commitment to diversity and inclusion. His advocacy has led to one diverse supplier having a very high chance of being onboarded.
James is a thought leader in identifying opportunities for diverse suppliers in his category. He is recommending rebate approaches with diverse suppliers so Capital One is incentivized to grow spend with them. He has also gathered inputs from suppliers during these diverse spend conversations and synthesized the results to report back to the accountable executive.
James has dedicated hours to organizing diverse spend discussions with the suppliers, collaborating with the line of business to find pockets of opportunities within the category, and sharing out best practices regarding Tier II spend with suppliers to grow diverse spend within the category.
WATCH VIDEO >This award honors the Capital One line of business partner who demonstrates a sustained commitment to the inclusion of diverse-owned businesses in our supply chain, and promotes supplier diversity across the organization.
Melissa Matthews , Extended Operations Manager with Capital One Supply Chain Solutions
Melissa Matthews is an operations manager on our Supply Chain Solutions team. Late last year, Melissa’s accountable executive had noted that he was interested in learning more about diverse spend in his area. Melissa, along with James Mercer and other ESM teammates, were asked to evaluate the use of and spend with diverse suppliers in the Supply Chain Solutions area. She led the work with the ESM team, who began a deep dive into the current situation, including bringing in supplier diversity to gather Tier I and Tier II spend. She initiated information gathering sessions with suppliers who are currently reporting diverse spend with their subcontractors to learn best practices and worked with the Supplier Diversity team to develop a plan to drive continued communications and reporting of supplier diversity information in Odi Agenmonmen’s business area.
Fast forward six months later when Melissa presented to Odi and his leadership team. Her presentation drove a robust conversation and commitment by Odi to taking action to increase spend and drive further evaluation of including two diverse suppliers in upcoming RFPs. Melissa researched industry trends, found research about the impact on the bottom line of using diverse suppliers and included this in her presentation. She did sensitivity analyses on what it would take to grow spend to specific levels. She has embraced supplier diversity and is continuing to move the business towards a more diverse and inclusive way of thinking.
WATCH VIDEO >This award honors the Supplier Diversity Professional that has strategic engagement with Capital One on incorporating innovative ways to identify diverse suppliers, and supports Capital One’s work in developing diverse suppliers.
Linda A Hamilton , Founder & CEO, Linda A Hamilton, CPA LLC
Linda Hamilton has been a tremendous partner to Capital One’s Supplier Diversity program. She has worked with Capital One for 8 years in her role as co-business leader and now as a business partner in the Sage Advice Program, our joint development program that was originally developed with WBEC DMV/NY for WBEs. The Capital One and WBEC team have come to rely on this award winner for her counsel, dedication and commitment to supporting women owned businesses in our area.
During the pandemic, Capital One decided to expand the SAGE program to WBENC midwest. Before doing so, we consulted with Linda to see if she could partner with us. We knew we needed her partnership for a successful program!
Linda is committed to building a stronger community of qualified diverse suppliers by helping them manage their financial resources to profitability. She is an asset to WBE’s given her volunteer work in strengthening women-owned businesses throughout the WBENC network.
A strong workforce is vital to our economy, and this award winner’s commitment and dedication to helping women-owned businesses grow, create jobs and thrive is undeniable to the impact they have. In addition, she also runs her own successful and award-winning CPA firm where she understands first-hand the challenges of building a company and workforce
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