Burns & McDonnell
Melody Birmingham is SVP of Supply Chain and CPO at Duke Energy. Brittany Bennett is Assistant Department Manager-Industrial Electrical Solutions Group at Burns & McDonnell. Byron Witherspoon is Director of Supplier Diversity at Ameren. Sydney Furbush is Manager of Supplier Diversity at SDG&E.
It takes lots of planning for energy and utilities companies to maximize supplier diversity. This panel at the Burns & McDonnell Utilities Diversity Roundtable discussed the importance of a strong network of diverse suppliers for all utility operations and how it impacted business resilience in 2020.
Assistant Department Manager-Industrial Electrical Solutions Group, Burns & McDonnell, Brittany Bennett: We're going to discuss maximizing diverse supplier utilization, what this truly means, how to advance, and set goals. Also, talk about what's been going on during COVID, as well as within our strong network of diverse suppliers for all of our utility operations.
Director of Supplier Diversity, Ameren, Byron Witherspoon: From Ameren's perspective, we talk about the impact of COVID from a diverse business perspective. We've grown our diverse spend last year by twenty-five percent, but intentional business practice does lend itself to moving the needle.