PANEL
Small Business Certifications: What are they? What do you do once you have them?
FACILITATOR
Malcom Mayo
Associate Director of Supplier Dicersity
Dallas College
Malcolm Mayo is Associate Director of Supplier Diversity for Dallas College. His immediate family relocated to Dallas, TX from Louisville, KY 25 years ago. He has a wife and 2 kids (girls) and enjoys reading, traveling, sports and spending time with his family and friends when he has an opportunity to. After all this time he is still adjusting to the Texas heat.
Malcolm has 20+ years finance, management and operations experience across the food service, food distribution, manufacturing, healthcare, education, and retail industries. It was the start of his career in fast food where he recognized that his passion for people development, finance and operations would be his areas of focus going forward. He spent 7 years at Walmart headquarters where he was responsible for a 5 billion dollar business and was able to use his past experiences to broaden his expertise in merchandising, financial analysis, process improvement, logistics and cost savings.
Malcolm has reached a point in his career where he wants to use his background and experience to help small business, churches and non-profit organizations fill the gaps in their operational needs. He is also active in the community serving as the President of the Dad’s Club at his daughter’s school, PTA member and Governance Chair at his church.
MBA, Management and Finance, Keller Graduate School of Management Bachelor of Science, Business Administration, Morris Brown College
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SPEAKER
Sherman Powers
Executive Director
North Texas Central Regional Certification Agency
Sherman Powers graduated Grambling State University in 2002 and started
his career in healthcare by becoming as Assistant Manager at Walgreens.
Sherman left Walgreens and became the Consumer Analyst working for the
VP and SVP of Benefit Operations at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana.
In retrospect, he now realizes that they were grooming him to become VP
because he left BCBSLA in 2017 and became the VP of Provider Operations
at Ciox Health. He transitioned from Ciox Health and became the Director
of Inpatient/Outpatient Wound Care at Texoma Medical Center.
In December 2021, Sherman became the Executive Director of the North
Central Texas Regional Certification Agency (NCTRCA) where he provides
Minorities, Women-Owned, Small Business (MWSBE) as well as Airport
Concessions Disadvantaged Business (ACDBE) and Disadvantaged Business
(DBE) certifications to minority, women-owned, and small businesses.
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SPEAKER
Taylor Crosby
Executive Director of Marketing
Women’s Business Council Southwest
Taylor Crosby is the Executive Director of Marketing for the Women’s Business Council – Southwest, a non-profit dedicated to increasing the value of women-owned businesses by certification, education, advocacy, and mutually beneficial opportunities for members and affiliates. With an extensive 15-year career in marketing for start-up and ed tech companies, she helps to drive the internal and external communications for the Council.
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SPEAKER
Andrew Nash
Director of Operations
Dallas Fort Worth Minority Supplier Development Council
Andrew D. Nash is the Director of Operations for Dallas Fort Worth Minority Supplier Development Council. Mr. Nash reports to the President and CEO, Margo J. Posey. The Council certifies and brings together ethnic minority companies to do business with Fortune 500 companies. Andrew has overall responsibility for support staff, technology and the responsibility of tracking the organization’s progress.
Prior to joining the D/FW MSDC, Andrew completed eight years of service in the U.S. Army. He also worked in the Telecommunication Industry for DSC Communications, Alcatel, and World Wide Technology (telcobuy.com). Andrew attended the University of Maryland College, majoring in Business Management. He is a graduate of the Leadership Dallas 2010 Class and has attended the Minority Business Executive Program at The Tuck Business School at Dartmouth College. He is currently serving his second term on the Arlington ISD’s Citizens Bond Oversight Committee (CBOC), and on the Board of the State of Texas Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) Working Group.
Andrew enjoys golf, music and spending time with family.
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SPEAKER
Grace Hastings
Supplier Diversity Manager
Oncor
Graciela “Grace” Hastings is the supplier diversity manager at Oncor Electric Delivery Co. LLC. She began her career with Oncor — formerly known as TXU — in 1988. Previously, she held positions in customer service, procurement, materials management and corporate contracts. She joined the corporate supplier-diversity organization in 2000. In 2008, she was promoted to supplier diversity manager.
In this role, she manages Oncor’s supplier diversity program. Under her leadership, the largest energy delivery company in Texas has spent more than $2 billion with diverse suppliers since its supplier diversity initiative was created in 2007. It was a Gold Award winner in the 2018 American Business Awards. Oncor also received the President’s Award from the Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in 2018.
She currently serves as secretary on the board of Women’s Business Council – Southwest and has been involved over the years with Dallas/Fort Worth Minority Business Development Council Inc. She has been the recipient of many awards, including 2019 Corporate Advocate of the Year for Women’s Business Council – Southwest.
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SPEAKER
Ruben Landa
Assistant Vice President
WSP USA
Ruben Landa is an experienced and accomplished leader in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. He has more than 22 years of experience in public involvement, public affairs, communications, and diversity program management. His career includes significant time with STV Incorporated, HDR Inc., the Texas State Senate, K Strategies Group and now with WSP USA, where he is Assistant Vice President and Texas Business Leader for Communications and Public Involvement.
Ruben’s professional career includes extensive experience developing and managing public involvement and diversity programs on many high-profile legacy projects in the states of Texas and Arizona. Ruben maintains an in-depth understanding of public policy, public administration and community factors that can affect decision-making on major public projects. This has allowed him to develop programs using a strategic approach that has produced positive results for both the client and the community.
Ruben has developed and implemented numerous effective public involvement and communication programs for major projects in the transportation industry. These included comprehensive public involvement programs for major investment studies, alternative analysis studies, draft and final environmental impact statements, and programs geared for design-build projects. The tools utilized for these projects have been far-ranging and innovative, and they have been widely accepted and adopted by major transportation authorities, such as the Texas Department of Transportation, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, City of Dallas, Houston METRO, Arizona Department of Transportation, and Valley Metro in Phoenix.
Ruben also has significant experience in diversity program management in the transportation and construction industries He has a proven record of developing comprehensive and effective programs geared toward maximizing the participation of diverse firms on major projects. Ruben’srange of expertise in this field includes DBE, M/WBE, SBE and HUB program development, as well as public outreach, procurement, contract compliance, capacity building and mentor-protégé program development and implementation. He has successfully developed and implemented programs for the Texas Department of Transportation, DFW International Airport, Dallas Love Field Airport, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Fort Worth Transportation Authority, the City of Dallas, and Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Through his considerable expertise, Ruben has developed strategic partnerships and maintains leadership roles with numerous advocacy organizations in the industry, including minority chambers, contractor associations and trade organizations. He is a committed industry leader and currently the immediate past-President for the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) North Texas Chapter and serves on the COMTO National Board of Directors. He is also the Past Chairman of the Board for the Regional Hispanic Contractors Association (RHCA), President for the Greater Dallas Planning Council (GDPC), and Vice President for the MBE Institute for Public Policy (MBEIPP). Ruben has been recognized for his leadership in the business community, including being named the Top Dallas Minority Business Leader by the Dallas Business Journal in 2014, the Honorable Ray LaHood Award Recipient for Women in Transportation Seminar (WTS) in 2019, the GDPC President’s Award in 2018 and 2020 and COMTO President & CEO Award of Excellence in 2020.
A proud native Texan, Ruben has earned both Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Political Science from Sam Houston State University in Texas. He is also an avid marathon runner, Spartan racer, yogi, and traveler.
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SPEAKER
Victoria Stevenson
President/CEO
Allied Supply Chains Support & Services
Allied-SCSS was established in 2013, as the Founder & CEO, Victoria Stevenson has been passionate and driven to revitalizing urban communities through sustainable principles; as a Business Development Consulting firm, we specialize in helping minority and women owned businesses successfully navigate government contracting to help scale their business. As a Business Development Consulting expert with more than 25 years’ executive experience in supplier diversity and business development, Stevenson’s primary focus, throughout her career has always been to improve the marketability and profitability of minority and women owned businesses. Victoria has a track record of helping her clients execute their vision for their business from conception to execution to profitability by maximizing performance in all aspects of their business successfully in government contracting. Why Government Contracting? Government Contracting is a means to scale your business through sustainable revenues while you’re growing your business as a minority and women owned business through supplier diversity spend – which most minority and women owned businesses are unaware. She served as the NAWBO DFW Chapter President (2021-2022) and has been on the local board for 4 years, currently serving on the Women of Color Committee with the WBCS and was just recently recognized for her accomplishments as a woman-owned business (WBE) with annual sales under $5 million that exemplify outstanding business acumen, industry leadership, and a commitment to doing business with fellow WBEs; Stevenson has also been very active in her community to address the barriers and disparities that impact underserved minority communities of color – such as homelessness, health, housing and education.
I’m “Intentional” in helping minority and women owned businesses become successful in their business!