Performance First is an educational program designed to help corporations from our region’s leading industry clusters improve their procurement and purchasing systems with regard to minority- and women-owned businesses. It was developed by a partnership between the Puget Sound Regional Council, Michael Verchot from the Business and Economic Development Center (BEDC) at the University of Washington Michael G. Foster School of Business, and Fernando Martinez from the Northwest Minority Supplier Development Council. Research to help develop the curriculum was performed by Brooke Spearmon and Monisha Harrell.

This approach will help your company institutionalize best practices taken from national corporate leaders, using specialized guidance and tools to understand and incorporate ways that your employees and leadership can diversify procurement and purchasing.

In order to lead and stay ahead of the pack in a competitive marketplace, the world’s most forward-thinking companies know that working successfully with minority-owned suppliers is critical.

This online self-paced program consists of 9 Steps and an accompanying Supplier Diversity Toolkit. Each step consists of an introduction video as well as recommended readings from the Billion Dollar Roundtable (BDR) Supplier Diversity Best Practices book.

Next: Step 1 —>