FINISHED FILE

 2016 USBLN

19th ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCEORLANDO, FLORIDASEPTEMBER 20, 2016SUPPLY CHAIN PLENARY

3:15 PM ET  Services Provided By:

Caption First, Inc.P.O. Box 3066Monument, CO 801321 877 825 5234+001 719 481 9835www.captionfirst.com

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This text is being provided in a rough draft Format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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>> ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome director of diversity programs, Patricia Richards.

>> PATRICIA RICHARDS: Okay. All right, peanut gallery. I do like it, though. It's pretty neat. Good afternoon.

Yeah, we're going to do that again. Good afternoon! That sounds wonderful. Music to my ears.

My name is Patricia Richards. I'm the director of the disability diversity supplier program supplier program. Welcome to the 2016 USBLN supply chain plenary with a focus on technology. So you're going to hear a lot of great exciting things today. And we hope that you really enjoy it. Some of the things that you're going to hear today and see today is a special feature on DOBEs and technology.

And, of course, I hope by now most of you know what a DOBE is. Let me see. How many of you know what a DOBE is? Raise your hand. For those of you who don't, a DOBE is a disability owned business enterprise.

And you're going to hear a lot more about them today. All right. So why don't we go ahead and talk a little bit more about what you're going to hear. You're going to hear about the new Certification and Sourcing Hub, the hub as we affectionately know it now. And you're going to hear lots more and see lots more.

I like to give a special thanks to Regina Heyward who has served as this year's chair of the supply chain track plenary.

And Regina, yes. And also serving on the supply chain track committee, many of our great corporate partners. We'd like to thank them as well for developing just a wonderful track and session. So I hope you've been able to enjoy some of those sessions today. Have you? Good sessions? All right. Great.

And I'd like to also take the opportunity to thank Jill Houghton, our president and CEO of USBLN. She has always been so supportive and so much an advocate for disability-owned businesses and service-disabled veteran owned businesses and Jill, we couldn't do it without your support. And thank you for all that you do.

[Applause.]Yay, Jill.I also will use this opportunity to thank all of our

corporate partners, the disability supplier diversity corporate partners who have supported us over the past several years and helped us grow. DSDP as we call it.

And also would like to thank our disability-owned businesses and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses who are just the best example of why you should do business with DOBEs. So thank you all for that.

[Applause.]Now it's my pleasure to introduce to you Cami Turcotte. She

is the coordinator of DSDP, the disability supplier diversity program, and as we like to say the hardest working woman in supplier diversity. Many of you know her, corporate partners know her and work with her on a daily basis. Our suppliers of disability-owned businesses have worked with her on a daily basis and it's my pleasure to work with her and count her as a team member that I wouldn't go anywhere without. So Cami, come on up.

>> CAMI TURCOTTE: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you, guys. We have an amazing program here for you today. And a great roster of speakers which include Regina Heyward, Jill Houghton, and Rodney Sampson, our special guest speaker. You'll learn more about fantastic TED talks from Alex Taub and Mary Brougher. More about the USBLN Certification and Sourcing Hub and the new pitch tank competition. Let's talk first about the disability supplier program. The USBLN's disability supplier diversity program offers corporations and government agencies a reliable certifying source for disability-owned businesses and serviced disabled veteran-owned businesses.

Supplier diversity is about inclusion and becoming inclusive when it comes to outreach and utilization of disability suppliers.

Did you know that there are 57 million people with

disabilities? 1 out of 5 Americans have a disability.This includes disabilities like cancer and diabetes.When these disabilities significantly impact the major life

functions of an individual entrepreneur, that entrepreneur may qualify as a disability owned business enterprise and apply for certification through USBLN.

Once certified, DOBEs and SDV-DOBEs eagerly pursue contracts through corporate partners and government partners. Why include disability suppliers? To strengthen supply chains including new ideas, innovation and competitiveness.

Customer compliance where you're required to be inclusive of these diverse firms.

Capabilities and agility.These suppliers are eager for your business and can respond

rapidly to your needs.Access the buying power of the disability community. Brand

loyalty. This community is extremely brand loyal representing in many cases an untapped market. Talent attraction, attracting and retaining Rising Leaders with disabilities that can be included in the supply chain.

DSDP is so honored to work with strong corporate partners who help drive disability inclusion with all that they do in their own companies.

We look forward to seeing many of you who signed up for business exchange match maker meetings tomorrow where relationships will be forged between DOBEs and corporate decision-makers.

It is now my pleasure to introduce Pat Graves, president Caption First and chair of the 2016 DOBE Host Committee. Pat Graves.

>> PATRICIA GRAVES: I love the music, I love the music, thanks. It is really a great opportunity and I would love to thank our sponsor Wells Fargo and the chair of supply chain track Regina O. Heyward senior Vice President head of supplier diversity for Wells Fargo. I have to tell you as the DOBE chair I had the opportunity to sit on that committee and to learn. And so to Regina wherever you are out there in that audience, thank you for teaching me personally during those supply chain meetings. I really appreciate that.

I want to thank Jill Houghton, our enthusiastic, stupendous, powerful, and inspirational USBLN leader. Thank you for everything that you do, Jill.

And Patricia Richards and Cami Turcotte, you just met them and I love the music that I had walking in but it really applies to them. When I was sitting there before the show started, someone -- Lindsey, I think it was, you went up to Patricia and hugged her and said, "You rock!" and that's pretty much how we

feel about the DSDP team. So thank you to our corporate partners and wonderful representatives, some companies have what? 56 representatives here? We thank you. Thank you for supporting DSDP and the disability business owners. We really appreciate that.

Now, as chair of the DOBE Host Committee, I have the pleasure to represent all DOBEs and service-disabled veteran-owned disability businesses.

I have to tell you, we are some of the best entrepreneurs in the world. We start our businesses. We work tirelessly on those businesses. We get new contracts. We develop the businesses. And we work incredibly hard to deliver our products and our services on time and as promised. So when you see the name DOBE on a name tag, know that you are dealing with a very hard worker and someone who is incredibly committed to service.

So here's a little bit about myself. I'm a court reporter. You know, I sit behind the machine that little steno type machine in the courtroom. I love words. I love grammar. I love punctuation. And I could not control myself today. I had to write down a few -- just a few words that were spoken. So there was one corporate view given by Northrop. And that was what can we do to ensure our employees feel counted? And I loved hearing that because that really shows that you care.

And another corporate view was said in one of the breakouts by Southwest Airlines representative.

He said, "Look beyond the now and ask what's next? What is the next challenge?" so you ask what's a DOBE? We are the companies you go to when faced with what's next? What's the next challenge? We are the innovators who will solve challenges. Let's face it. We solve challenges every single day. We are the people you go to. We are ready for your challenges.

And at this time, we're going to have several short videos featuring Jack Smith, Andy Houghton, Joyce Bender and myself. Your DOBE Host Committee. Thank you.

>> Hi, my name is Patricia Graves, I'm president and founder of Caption First, we're an international realtime captioning and transcription company.

You know, if you're in a crowded gym or a noisy bar and you look on the TV and see the captions, that's what we do. We make those words.

Perhaps you're a deaf person and you attend a webinar or you watch a video with captions.

We make those words.Caption First, making your life more accessible word by

word.>> We're a multimedia production company. We help develop

innovative programs to create loyalty building relationships

between your company and individuals with disabilities.Our expert team offers complete multimedia solutions from

concept to delivery into multiple formats by utilizing our in-house video editing, production, and encoding expertise to control the entire multimedia production.

>> So what are you waiting for? Get in the game.>> In the country of Ecuador, high in the Andes mountains

lived the indigenous farmers who grow quinoa. These descendants survive on less than $500 a year. When I learned this two years ago, I decided to start a new division of my company called Highland Farm Foods for the sole purpose of helping to raise their standard of living.

You received one of our products in your welcome bag. Our healthy nutritious quinoa crops are available in six delicious flavors and I'm happy to say market response has been overwhelming. When you purchase any of our products you're supporting these people with medical and educational grants and a consistent market for their crops at the fair market price and on their behalf, I thank you. I'm Jack Smith, president of Charlotte International Partners.

>> I'm Joyce Bender, the CEO and founder of Bender Consulting Services and a woman living with epilepsy. At Bender Consulting Services, we provide the search and recruitment of people with disabilities for our customers across America. In addition we provide disability training and accessibility testing. Remember, people with disabilities provide business value. We want paychecks, not pity.

[Applause.]>> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage

president and CEO of the U.S. Business Leadership Network Jill Houghton.

>> JILL HOUGHTON: Thank you. You know what? This is one of our most impactful programs. Have you been able to tell. Thinking about what's next? These disability-owned businesses and SDV disability-owned businesses are tremendous. And I'll tell you what's next, Pat Graves, you want a problem to solve? Actually what's next for every single person in this room. Here's what we need you to do. We need you to help us find more. Help us grow the number of certified disability-owned businesses and service-disabled veteran disability owned businesses. So are you in? Come on! Are you in? Thank you.

Okay.So I would like to acknowledge our procurement council and

our national certification committee. Because without these two entities, we wouldn't be -- and I think you've heard some of them over here. That have been kind of loud.

So thank you, Raul and thank you to all of you. Darlene and

Philip is not here. There's a whole sea of you. And thank you for your leadership and all that you do to help build this program.

Thank you to our founding partners. There was a slide up there in the early days, there were two companies, IBM and Walmart that came to us and they said you know what? Why don't we include disability-owned businesses in our supplier diversity program? Number one.

And number 2, they said we need a third party certification that will help us certify disability owned businesses and SDV disability-owned businesses and help us be inclusive. And they said that's you, USBLN. And so then these 15 companies stood up and it's the slide before that. The 15 companies stood up. Anthem, EY, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, IBM, Emergency, Marriott, Merck. Qualcomm. Sodexo, SunTrust, Walmart and Wells Fargo. Those 15 companies stood up and helped us build this program and fast forward to the next slide, you all, count left companies, two slides worth of companies have begun to not only include our certification disability owned businesses and SDV-DOBEs in your supplier diversity but some of you have begun to measure your spend. And that is wonderful and we thank you. We want to work together with those of you that don't do that yet.

There's an opportunity to get in the game and to start including DOBEs and start including SDV DOBEs and last but certainly not least, I would tell you that this program does not exist except for there's two things. Number one, you've got an amazing leader in Patricia Richards and Cami Turcotte. Those two -- thank you.

And most recently Mr. Brian Horn has joined that effort. So you're going to get to meet him in a second. And number 2, you know what? When we first went on this journey, we got introduced to our friends at the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and at the women's Business Enterprise National Council. And those two entities took us under their wings. They didn't have to and they said we will teach you everything that we know. And I'll tell you, that was in 2010. And fast forward to where we are today we are under their wings, we are holding their hands and we are working every step of the way together because when we work together, everyone wins. So with that in mind, it's my great honor to introduce you to one of the newest members of our team. He's almost been with us for a year, Mr. Brian Horn, our director of policy.

[Applause.]>> Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Jill. I just want to

take a second and talk about some of the exciting policy wins that we've experienced over the last year.

In November Governor Charlie Baker in Massachusetts signed

an executive order the first of its kind in the country that stated that disability-owned businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned businesses, veteran-owned businesses and LGBT owned businesses would be added to the state supplier diversity program. Also made the USBLN the exclusive certifier of disability-owned businesses for the commonwealth of Massachusetts. And it also accepted our certification for service-disabled veteran-owned businesses.

Similarly, Governor Tom Wolf in Pennsylvania signed an executive order doing the same thing. Both including disability-owned businesses and LGBT owned businesses in the state's supplier diversity program and accepting our certification for DOBEs. Also in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, both states now accept NGC certification for LGBT and in New York in mayor, a bill was introduced in the Senate that would create an Office of Supplier diversity within the state government and would accept the USBLN certification for DOBEs in the NGLCC certification for LGBT owned businesses and I want to give a big shoutout to our friends at the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber without whom none of these policy wins would happen. We're truly united in these efforts we go at it together because as Jill said we believe that when we work together we all do better. Why is this important to all our corporate partners sitting here in the audience today? Two things: Certification and self-employment gives economic opportunity to people with disabilities. Something I know you all believe in. And secondly, these state initiatives that we've been experiencing are also increasing the number of certified suppliers that we have. Because for example, if you're a business in Massachusetts, and you want to get certified as a DOBE, the state is going to send them to us and we're going to get you certified, hopefully, and we're going to send you back and hopefully get you a contract in Massachusetts.

So we're seeing an increase in our suppliers which means more awesome DOBEs and SDV-DOBEs for you all to work with. Thank you so much and I'm really excited to be here.

[Applause.]>> Please welcome to the stage senior Vice President and

head of supplier diversity for Wells Fargo and the 2016 Supply Chain Track Chair Regina O. Heyward.

[Applause.]>> REGINA HEYWARD: Ooh, ooh, I love that song. Don't y'all

love that song? Welcome to the supply chain plenary. Let's give it up for ourselves for making it to the afternoon and being here with some energy.

[Applause.]I am Regina Heyward, senior Vice President and head of

supplier diversity at Wells Fargo and I can tell you looking out

at this wonderful crowd, I am so excited and my heart is so full of gratitude to be here today with you.

We've been on quite a journey the supply chain planning committee to get to this conference. We started way back in January really thinking about how do we create an atmosphere, an environment of information that not only continues to build on the great work of USBLN but takes us forward into the future and to these spaces of digital technology, startup financing, access to capital, business growth and business development.

Ideas and interests that we know that our DOBEs are dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

So what we have put together for you while we are here together in Orlando is going to take us to the edge of our thinking when it comes to what it means to be a DOBE.

And I can tell you I have redefined DOBE and I'm hoping you guys are going to back me up on this. Now, we've heard the definition of disability-owned business enterprise and that's great.

But I'm declaring that DOBE is doing outstanding business with excellence. How do you feel about that? Do I have some DOBEs in the room? And so what that means is that we are all DOBEs if we adopt that definition of what it means to be a DOBE.

I'm so excited to be here with my colleagues from Wells Fargo. You guys give me a hand. I know Kathy Martinez is out there somewhere as well.

But we're really excited to be here in this particular conference because this really represents for us a convergence of many areas within our organization. We have our enterprise marketing team that's here. Our communications team is here, our supply chain individuals are here.

Our recruiters and our accessibility teams are here as well.We've also invited in team members from the Orlando area.

And all of that is really helping us to take our focus on being inclusive and what we call in Wells Fargo diverse abilities inclusion to the next level.

And I just want to give you some quick facts. I know I shared some of these this morning. We spent $3 million in 2015 with disability owned businesses that are certified through USBLN. We funded eight of those businesses to the Tuck program up at Dartmouth for continued education and business development. But we've also taken a very strong look at the products and services that we offer into the marketplace. And we're focusing on technology. As you think about banking, we know that we can bank on our smartphone and that becomes almost that point of access that's the most impressive for those who are looking to bank with ease.

But I wanted to share a few statistics around the business

case for disability and I think that's going to bring this whole notion of doing outstanding business with excellence into this room today. Nearly 1 in 5 people in the United States has a disability. When including a companion, 1 in 2 U.S. households are using an accessibility lens in their product purchases and the decisions they're making on a day-to-day basis. I want to bring this home for banking and this will let you know why, when I think of our colleagues and other banks, this is a big area of opportunity. 18.4% of people with disabilities are unbanked and 28.1% are underbanked.

Those are some staggering numbers when we think about the need of the Financial Services industry to make sure that we're meeting those needs of the community.

And when we think about the trends and where we're going, millenials with disabilities are expected to work within the workforce. We have been talking a lot about inclusion and how we ensure that we have inclusion across the workforce. So there's a big expectation when you think about the generations to be included.

And then this word called a silver tsunami is upon the U.S. since 2011, 10,000 Americans turned age 65 every day. So this is a convergence of dynamics that we certainly need to be aware of.

Now, before I introduce just a very special treat for us today, I want to take some time to recognize two businesses that have been absolutely instrumental in helping Wells Fargo to achieve and to excel in the DOBE utilization space. And both of these businesses were featured in a magazine article that we published a few months back called a win-win creating opportunities for entrepreneurs with disabilities. If they're in the room please stand when I'm talking about you. Lindsey Haser. Lindsey always dreams big about her business. She owns a business called Advocations LLC. It's a niche recruiting firm that specializes in job placements for professionals with disabilities. Wells Fargo was very happy to sponsor Lindsey to the Tuck executive education program. Lindsey are you out there. I know I saw you yesterday. Lindsey, give me a shoutout. Over here. Give it up for Lindsey.

[Applause.]And then the second business mark Ellison a CEO of JEMNI

Inc. a certified disability-owned business and certified service-disabled veteran-owned business owns a small business that focuses on packaging design and nationwide packaging fulfillment services. Mark recently participated in the Tuck Google digital excellence program funded by Wells Fargo to that program. So let's give it up for these two entrepreneurs. Great examples.

[Applause.]

Great examples of the how.Now, before I bring up our keynote speaker, I want to thank

the team that worked alongside of the USBLN staff and myself to put this supply chain track together. Rolla with Walmart, George Foley, 3M. Dominica group. Patricia and Cami with the DSDP program. Let's give it up for those individuals. Thank you all so much.

Let me ask just by show of hands how many people in leer are familiar with the show shark tank. Does that ring a bell? Maybe I should have asked how many are not familiar with shark tank. I saw just about every hand go up there. I'm going to introduce Rodney Sampson who is our speaker today. Rodney is a social innovator, serial entrepreneur, angel investor and published author. When I say serial entrepreneur, he has founded the following business, multicast media networks in 2000. He cofounded intellectual currency and integrated marketing and business development firm in 2002. Intellect inspire, ape digital implant of audible in 2006. And legacy opportunity fund in 2007. I think Rodney may be the definition of serial entrepreneur.

Rodney is an influential power house in business and media. He served as executive in charge of diversity and inclusion initiatives at 13 media. A joint venture between Mark Burnett Productions and heart. 1-3 media produces the voice, survivor, celebrity apprentice, and ABC's Shark Tank. Will you help me, USBLN, welcome our speaker, Mr. Rodney Sampson.

>> Hey, good afternoon.Good, definitely a pleasure to be here this afternoon. Get

my notes up. I am extremely excited to be here. I'm in from Atlanta, Georgia. Who has been to Atlanta before? Yeah.

Hotlanta. Yeah. So always thankful for the opportunity to share. I often say that when I take the stage, that's a reflection of the work that I actually do on a daily basis. And so when I have the opportunity to leave home and travel around and just share a little bit about my respective journey, as a serial entrepreneur, investor, now ecosystem builder, I'm always thankful of that.

Definitely to the USBLN, Jill, Patricia, Cami, thank you so much for hosting me here. And of course Regina, thank you for your continued partnership as well as it relates to us getting out our story but also some of the work as well. Little bit about myself. I'm going to jump in today on a thesis that I developed around a conversation, the intersectionality of inclusion in innovation to create equity and parity.

I'll say that again, the intersectionality of inclusion and innovation to create equity and parity. So I'm a native Atlantan educated at Tulane, Penn State School of Medicine and Keller

school of business. I have started four technology companies, co-founded four technology companies. Two of them were probably the biggest failures you've never heard of. And then two of them we actually experienced excess, which means we built the companies up and they were acquired by other companies. I believe I learned more actually Regina with the failures than I did with the successes.

I have penned and authored four books. My latest book is entitled King-onomics. 12 innovative currencies for transforming your business and life inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And I'll reference a little bit today.

I was the first executive in charge of diversity and inclusion at 1-3 media which is a joint venture between Hearst and Mark Burnett productions. I served in that role. Now I'm in advisory once that was acquired by MGM. Mark Burnett is now president of MGM television. He continues to grow. The most recent release we worked on was Ben Murray and we worked to negotiate Morgan Freeman being part of Ben Hur to show more diversity and inclusion in an epic remake.

Today when I'm not traveling I spend most of my time in Atlanta.

I am a partner in an organization called TechSquare Labs.So we're definitely steeped in technology.We purchased an old Office Depot by Georgia Tech in Atlanta

and converted 25,000 square feet into a technology incubator, we have students from Georgia Tech, George more house, Clark Atlanta, SCAD recent graduates and just entrepreneurs in general that come to us for business incubation. We also are a venture firm. We raced $25 million seed fund. We invest very early stage in prerevenue companies that are disrupting an industry and an ecosystem.

We have a corporate innovation practice whereby we help large corporations to actually become more innovative. I'm going to talk a little bit about that today because therein lies the opportunities for your respective organizations to grow and scale.

A new project we just launched last week which has some relevance to today as well we announced in Washington at the White House is the tech opportunity fund. You might have heard that by 2020 there's going to be a shortage. I know all the staffing folks in the room and IT know this, there's going to be a shortage of about 1.2 million technical computing software engineering jobs.

And so a few of us got together and launched something called "the tech opportunity fund" which actually will -- it's a $100 million fund. We've raised about $45 million of the commitments to date to allow minorities, women, women with

disabilities, and veterans to receive full scholarships to go through coding boot camps around the country so they can learn to code and they can get some of the engineering jobs that are out there.

So that's a little bit about my work. And it provides context to this thesis that equity and parity can be created at the intersection of innovation and inclusion.

I'm going to refer briefly to the Kingonomics book. I just want to lay a ground work in terms of today's talk. But also as we continue throughout the next couple of days. Innovation has become another buzz word. And so when you look at the very definition of innovation which we turned into a hashtag back at TechSquare Labs which says build something from nothing. So innovation by definition in essence is with you're creating something that's never been created before or you're improving on something with a new product or service of something that does exist.

Well Dr. King, Martin Luther King, I'm speaking about was keenly aware of the rapid pace of global change. He spoke with a fierce sense of urgency about the need to stay awake. And so my first point today as I'm talking is hopefully, you'll stay awake. Parenthetically though, when I'm saying stay awake, what I mean is success in business, significance in business, primarily of those who have experienced success for the period of time tend to sleep.

We tend to suffer sometimes from the complacency that comes with success.

By the time you match that with a person's ego and the masking of their insecurities and all of the other psychological things that may entail, we end up missing out on opportunities because we think we've already arrived or no one can tell us nothing because we've gotten the contracts already. And no one can teach us anything because we've been this way before. But Dr. King warned us about saying awake and remaining vigilant and mentally nimble. Hopefully as you listen to me for the next few minutes, you will remain open ended. Because I'm going to take you through a very, very simple journey of what we take our startups through that we invest in before we write a check to any startup, we take them through this process. I'm going to give you a little bit of insight behind the veil. So today the world is facing problems on a major scale. Every industry, every ecosystem, everything is facing disruption. Like it's never been before. But it's critical for us all on this planet to meet those challenges with new ideas, practices and mindsets that have never been implemented before. I'll close with this. The trouble with innovation and Dr. King implied this in his speeches and writings is that it is easily embraced but very tough to

simple. So there's a lot of talk about innovation. A lot of cool hash tags related to innovation, but to actually implement it requires action. Patricia, this is your book when I'm done, all right. You're welcome. How many of you heard of lean startup methodology? A few of you, all right. In today's business world we live and breathe by the LEAN startup methodology. Which really is very simple.

We identify a problem. We create a product or service. We call that a minimum viable product to address that problem and then we go out and do what we call customer discovery.

We talk to people who we don't know. We talk to our yes people and people are always going to cheer us on. But we talk to people who have literally nothing to do with our organization but could benefit from the creation of this product or service and we get them to answer the hard questions about what we're solving. That's the process I want to walk you through as you look at your industry, you look at this organization. You look at whatever ecosystem or supply chain that you are a part of.

So let's look at the problem. The problem you probably already have realized this. Supplier diversity is evolving. It's changing very rapidly. Yet many firms that are certified are not scaling.

So the industry is changing. Evolving.But a lot of the firms that have the certifications are not

scaling.Supplier diversity in all forms is competing inside of an

organization now against corporate innovation, entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship and corporate investment.

So inside of the corporation your advocates, the heads of supplier diversity. The heads of inclusion, the chief accessibility officers, are being challenged by budget cuts because that money is being reallocated to other areas inside of the company under the auspice of market growth and saving money.

So how do we address this problem? We have to look at inclusion. We have to look at difficulty. It's not altruism.

One of your enterprises said it best earlier.I'm not looking for pity. I'm looking for a paycheck.For so long diversity has been well it's just a good thing

to do. It's corporate social responsibility.But now in a big data universe, there's data that suggests

and shows that diversity, whether it be gender diversity ethnic or cultural diversity or any type of diversity actually increases the economic output of that organization. Particularly when that diversity inclusion is at the highest level of the supply chain all the way to the lowest level of the supply chain.

And so now you can be armed with data like the McKinzie study that suggests that ethnic diversity will increase output by

30%. That same -- 30%. That same study suggests that gender diversity, when you have women on the Board of Directors, women in the C suite. Women as investors in the organization increasers the economic output by almost 20%.

And so in shifting your thinking of how to grow and scale your particular businesses, want to understand how your customer is thinking and ultimately your customer whether a publicly traded company or a privately held organization is mostly concerned about Schroeder value shareholder value. So in today's economy as it's evolving into an innovation economy, how does your business fit inside of the innovation economy. That's the problem and let's talk about a thesis for the solution. Remember in the lean startup world we identify the problem first and then we work on what's called a minimum viable product. What is the product or service we can get to market the fastest at the least expense with the most profitability. Every company on the planet still has a viable product. Do you know what your primary customer's minimum viable product is? Coca-Cola for instance, we may assume that it is the Coke that we all know.

But is it? Is it vitamin water? Is it real estate? Is it bottling? Do you actually know what your company's minimum viable product is? Let's create one today. This is the thesis. Equity and parity exist at the intersection of inclusion and innovation.

Here's one: Pain is the precedence for profitability.Let's think about that one. Pain is the precedence for

profitability.How many of you have pain in your life? Come on, you can be

honest. We can be honest here.Any type of pain. You want more customers. That's a pain

point.What I've realized in my short career as an entrepreneur

investor about 20 years, what I've realized is if I focus on solving the pain points inside of an organization supply chain, I always have opportunities to create a scalable business.

And so as entrepreneurs, it's our business to always revisit the minimum viable product that our organization provides to our respective customers.

Because this is what's happening inside of a company. Companies like AIG, companies like Walmart, companies like Wells Fargo that want to retain market share when technology startups, well-funded technology startups, some of the ones that I'm involved in, some of the ones that I would like to get involved in, are coming after the market share of these very, very large companies.

They're starting to say we need to find businesses to do business with that we don't have an RFP for yet.

Think about that. We're used to doing business through procurement.

And we always will do business through procurement. But there's another arm of businesses that are launching.

We just hired a person to join our team who ran a $200 million secret business unit at Coca-Cola called corporate innovation. And it worked literally in the dungeon of Coca-Cola's headquarters and they were working on products and processes to increase mark share for Coca-Cola but reduce expenses by increasing shareholder value. So, if you want to create a scalable company that has the opportunity to get a call not just from the chief procurement officer but the chief innovation officer. I don't know if you heard it earlier today at lunch when the gentleman from JP Morgan Chase was saying he had been invited to sit on the roundtable for technology inside of his organization.

Are you asking for a seat at the table of innovation and opportunity? Inside of the organizations?

Start looking for opportunities in other divisions of the company's supply chain.

If you're going to grow and scale as we move into this innovation economy, you've got to understand your customer's product, service, ecosystem industry and the supply chain. How do they make money? How do they lose money? Where do they lose money at? What's their minimum viable product? Has it changed? How is it manufactured or produced? What government policy is impacting that company's industry? Short term and long term.

This is the level of research you have to do in an open data economy.

So that you can pivot and shift your products and services when one item dries up, you don't have to go out of business because you've been able to create another product and service to supply that organization.

The second thing I want you to do is take your product or service -- I don't care if you have a $10 million firm, $1 million firm or $100 million publicly traded firm. It doesn't matter. I want you to convert your company back into a startup.

I want you to look at yourself as a startup founder today.And I want you to adapt the LEAN startup methodology for

everything that you do in your organization.How you go about your business development. How you go

about your marketing. What is your online social media presence look like? What does your LinkedIn profile, your personal LinkedIn profile and your company's linked in profile look like. Who are your Twitter followers, what go they think about you? How are you ranked amongst them. Companies are now vetting suppliers by looking at their interaction on the social graph.

They're not just going to the Web site any more because of the online interactivity, your social media rankings whether that's Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, at the top.

So, if you're going to be competitive in today's marketplace, you've got to have a presence that is interactive and up to date on the mobile phone.

Or online or on social media because when you're on that call talking to that person and pitching trying to get that meeting they've got you on speaker phone and they're looking you up online and if you've got a Web site that looks like it's been developed in 1985, more than likely you're going to have a very cordial call and you may not talk to them ever, ever again.

So treat your company like a high technology company in Silicon Valley, New York, Boston or Atlanta.

I'm not saying you've got to walk around every day with jeans and T-shirts on with your logo on. But what I'm saying is adopt the mindset -- that's what I do most of the time.

Adopt the mindset that you're in a constant mode of change.If you get a customer and the customer says good job, ask

yourself why they didn't say great job. Are your customers and clients referring you to three and four other potential customers? Why not? Who are your competitors? And why aren't you working together looking to form a merger or joint venture so you can go after larger business?

So real quickly, let me share with you inside of the organization how innovation is occurring. And I want you to think about how you can fit into a company's corporate innovation strategy.

So companies are forming dedicated innovation teams and these innovation teams are tasked with developing what they call innovation centers of excellence. Many times these teams don't have people from diverse backgrounds. So when products are being built, they're not being built for diverse populations. And so you have this homogenous development of products hard and software that don't get scale because they didn't come to the communities that they're selling to.

Can your firm be involved in the innovation of the company's new products and services? Don't think procurement. Think innovation.

Companies are setting up accelerators and incubators when they're investing in startups. Have you inquired with your diversity contacts what are the accelerator and -- incubator opportunities at these companies that I might be able to apply for. One, we're not thinking just procurement. We're thinking about investment because companies are also launching venture funds where they're now investing in companies that they want to do business with that they may one day acquire.

And so there's a lot that's going on inside of corporate America and large corporates around the world. Do not limit yourself to just getting supply diversity contracts because someone that that organization is challenged with creating something that does not exist.

And they look outside of the organization to people to do that.

The last thing I'll deal with and I'll close with this: I spend a lot of time studying capital formation. What do I mean by capital formation? How many of you have ever had to raise capital for your business to get started, to get a customer or to grow? A few of you.

In my world, 90+ percent of the Companies that grow at scale and are acquired in 3-5 years all raise capital.

If you think about it, if your company generates a million dollars a year in annual receipts and you net a half million a year, and you do that for 10 years, maybe you have $5 million. Before you pay taxes.

But what if you can work hard because you work hard anyway, but work a little smarter, raise some equity capital from angels, venture funds, crowd funding, corporate venture funds, hire more salespeople, generate more revenue, open up multiple campuses, and someone comes along and says I want to buy your company for you in three years and here's a check for $5 million.

Which one? 5 million over 10 years or 5 million in three years? I want to encourage you to look at how the startup community in America is using capital to grow and scale. Because ultimately every service is being challenged by a product, a widget, a bot, a robot.

And so, if you're only dedicated to providing services for the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, what happens when a drone is built and bought to replace that service? You have the edge because you're already doing business with companies.

So I want to encourage you to be the innovators around accessibility if nothing else. You should own the future of accessibility. Those ideas should come out of this organization, come out of this room, come out of this group. You should own those products and services and be selling them to the rest of the world.

Thank you for listening.[Applause.]Okay. We're going to take a few questions real quick. I

know we're a little over time so maybe one.>> We can't, Rodney, we can't let you go without trying to

field a couple of questions. Can we bring up the lights, please.So we can see people in the audience? And I think we

have -- I think we have two or three runners, roving reporters to

help us. So, if you have a question for Rodney, three questions.Oh, come on. Somebody has a question. He was great, wasn't

he?[Applause.]I see a lot of businesses forming in the future. Question?>> RODNEY SAMPSON: There's one right there.>> Okay.>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. My name is Susan Molnar, part of

the Rising Leaders program. I currently do a lot of stuff with trying to get kids in the South Carolina area interested in STEM and arts activities and entrepreneurship and I wonder if you had any tips that you would give as far as investing in the future and how we can bring up new leaders.

>> RODNEY SAMPSON: Great question. Actually, yesterday, we hosted an interactive conversation on our campus cohosted with the White House and the Atlanta City Office of Film and Entertainment, NSF was there. Cartoon Network was there. And what we realized is for instance how many people know what STEM is. Right, STEAM. Few more, science, technology, engineering, arts, math. The problem with this room is it's a learned room. We know what the acronym STEAM means. But, if I talk to a millenial or someone in high school and younger and I say are you interested in a STEAM career, they're like what's STEAM. So the imagery and the narrative of the career path related to STEAM haven't been very helpful. For instance when I go to Wells Fargo's job board and they have an opening for a junior level Java programmer, right? It doesn't say junior level STEAM programmer. So we're pushing a narrative that doesn't match up with a career path.

So I think what you should do is take career paths and then match that with people like for instance how many of you have heard of Catherine Johnson? Not many. Catherine Johnson, she's 98 years old today.

Catherine Johnson is an African-American scientist, mathematician who calculated the first moon landing.

Who would have known. There's a movie coming out called hidden features -- hidden figures on Christmas day that everyone should go see. Because somehow that got left out of the history books. Or all the other women who were required to work in a room somewhere and so while all the men took the credit for the moon landing, it was all the women, the Grace Hoppers of the world, the first programmers who actually learned Fortran to work the big IBM computers. I think the final part of that is we've got to put the right images of people in front of young people so that they can relate to that.

And then I think by kind of shifting the narrative and also showing examples of, like, a Catherine Johnson or a Grace Hopper

or a Monty Johnson who created the super soaker and showing these scientists and inventors and young people can say I see myself in that person. Hopefully, that helps.

>> RODNEY SAMPSON: Rodney, we're going to have to close out now. But I'm going to challenge the audience if you want to hear more from Rodney, come and visit the DOBE pitch tank competition which he will be moderating tomorrow afternoon at 3:15. Rodney, thank you so much for taking time to be with us today. Loved your comments, very inspiring. Thank you so much.

>> RODNEY SAMPSON: Okay. Very good.>> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome co-founder and CEO

of SocialRank, Alex Taub.>> ALEX TAUB: Hi, everybody.Alex Taub, the cofounder of SocialRank. I'm going to talk

about how companies can create WOW Moments on social media. A few seconds about me. I started SocialRank in 2014.

SocialRank is a really simple tool that helps brands and organizations better understand and activate their audience on social media. We raised over $2 million from investors. We're a certified DOBE and we have customers that include Samsung, GE, Southwest Airlines, American Red Cross, L'Oreal, Harvard, and many more.

Over the past 10 years brands, organizations, agencies, they spent countless hours and billions of dollars building up massive audiences on social media.

And we've hit a maturation point on social media where we have at least 10 networks. Social networks that have more than 100 million monthly active users.

And these networks aren't going anywhere. They're not disappearing. They're not going the way of MySpace or anything, they're getting bigger. When it comes down to it, there's two main things that these brands are doing on social media. They're broadcasting and they're reacting. Broadcasting is just like disseminating information. It's everything from tweeting, posting, sharing, pinning, snapping, depending on whatever network you're on. And reacting is, like, customer service or customer support. So, if someone says something about you and you want to, you know, jump in and respond.

And I believe there's a third bucket that a lot of these brands are going to be starting to do and we're already seeing them do which is really proactive customer experience, creating special moments with people on social media on an individualized level like never before.

And it really ties back to three main things. Companies want people to buy more. They want people to be more loyal and they want people to tell their friends.

And when you create these special moments, it's really

amazing. And I'll show a few examples in a minute -- of just how people respond to it. It's really becoming one of the biggest trends on social media right now, creating authentic moments and it can have a bigger impact on spending hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars on broad targeted campaigns, you can have a special moment with 10, 20, 30 people and really you know, change the difference for them.

So I'm going to walk you through three examples of the first -- there's two of them that are celebrities and one that's a brand. I'm going to -- the reason I'm bringing up celebrities is because they actually perfected the art of these 1 to 1 connections, these authentic moments. And then I believe that there's sort of a next frontier is brands sort of perfecting the art that celebrities have done online and off line. The first example is Chrissy Teigen, an author, super model and also married to John legend, the music. They went on Amazon and were going to buy a blender but instead bought her book. She said I'm going to get you that blender, send me your address and I'll buy it for you. That tweet went viral. Buzz feed wrote about it and a bunch of other outlets picked it up as well.

A second example is Juicy Couture. Juicy had a watch they wanted to sell more of. So they came in and they actually used SocialRank and they found two people to reward the watch to. They publicly posted that they were rewarding them and they let people buy it on their bio on Instagram. The third example which is my favorite is "the Rock" if you don't know who that is, you've probably been living under a rock for a few years of the he's the most popular -- I think he's the best paid actor in the world right now. And about a year ago he had a movie called San Andreas come out and he created that authentic amazing moment and let's roll the video.

>> Safara. This is Safara, thank you for coming out. I appreciate it. It's good to meet you. I heard a lot about you. e-oh, my God.

>> ALEX TAUB: He invited this person to a screen in Los Angeles before the movie came out and had an amazing experience with that fan.

So to wrap it all up, just to recap, Chrissy Teigen's book is a "New York Times" best seller, Juicy Couture sold 20% more watches the week after that campaign and San Andreas was the number one movie in the country and grossed 470 million worldwide. You should start thinking about other ways to connect with your audience on social media, not just broadcasting and reacting and there's an amazing opportunity to proactively have an amazing experience with a few people, creating these special one-to-one moments, these authentic experiences and thank you very much for having me.

[Applause.]>> Now, please welcome EVP of operations for Bender

Consulting Services, Inc., Mary L. Brougher.>> MARY BROUGHER: So it is absolutely wonderful to see all

of you. We have our serial entrepreneur, Rodney Sampson. And those of you who know me know that I work for a serial disability advocate and entrepreneur, Joyce Bender. So Joyce is a disability-owned business enterprise and she is on a mission to change the way people think about people with disabilities and to advance employment for people with disabilities. So as you can imagine, I receive many assignments from my boss every day. Today we're going to talk about digital accessibility.

And it's absolutely wonderful to share these brief remarks on the heels of the esteemed panel at lunch today. And just talk a lit about you know, innovation. Talk about partnerships and talk about action.

So let the shameful web of exclusion finally come tumbling down. We need to remove those digital accessibility barriers. Some of you may recall that 26 years ago when Papa George H.W. bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law, he said let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down. And a wall is a fixed object and that wall prevented people with disabilities, many of them 26 years ago, from being able to enter the workplace. So we've spent time and effort. We've used wrecking balls and sledge hammers to tear down that wall. We have installed ramps. We have installed curb cuts. We've installed Otis elevators. We've made great progress as it relates to removing barriers in the built environment, removing architectural barriers. You know, as well in order for us to be successful at work, we need to have an accessible workplace and many of us are very aggressively and actively recruiting people with disabilities. Why? You know, we talk about inclusion and really to fulfill the promise of inclusion, there's absolutely the necessity to create a welcoming workplace.

So we need to have attitudinal accessibilities. We're training our teams, you're workplace about interacting with communicating with interviewing, hiring engaging and promoting people with disabilities. We've made great progress in the area of advancing at attitudinal accessibility and removing barriers. Let's talk about digital accessibility. We heard about this today at lunch. We need to create technology, Web sites, mobile applications and documents that are available to all and usable by all. That's just simply what accessibility is all about. So for this assignment, the digital accessibility one, this one is kind of personal to me. When I was in college, I had just finished my sophomore year in college I was pursuing at the University of Pittsburgh computer science and economics degrees

and I was working in the summertime at a retail store in a shopping mall. I was driving home from work one day and I realized I just can't see very well. So I went to my optometrist who sent me to an ophthalmologist who sent me to a retinal specialist and he shared with me that I had a rare retinal virus and that it impacted my central vision fully, completely. And also impacted my peripheral vision. He had read about it before but are had not treated a patient with this retinal virus. He told me that day, Mary, one of three things could happen. Number one, after two or three months you may be able to see again. Your vision may be restored. Number 2: Newer vision may not return. And number 3, but it is restored, it may recur in the future. 2 1/2 months later my vision returns. Prior to that when I was examined I could not even see the big E on the chart with my glasses on. So my vision returns. I've not had a reoccurrence since then. But that was a real defining moment for me.

You know, when we look at injustice, imbalance and we look to remove on obstacles for those people, I learned quickly I was one of those people. What do we do about it? The experts today on stage told us we need to take action and we need to raise awareness and that's right. We also need to take action to make a difference and to remove these barriers. I'll provide you with a very quick example. Actually very shortly you'll be hearing from amazing Cami about the USBLN Certification and Sourcing Hub technology application that USBLN has brought to market to transform the disability supplier diversity program. And our company, a disability-owned business is proud to serve in a partnership with an incredible innovator, a company called AudioEye and they are a giant in the area of technology. And they believe that technology has created this barrier to independent access. So let's use technology to fix it.

They bring automation to the marketplace. And they also bring very practical tools that allow all of us to be able to read more easily on the Internet, to be able to find information and interact more easily with forms. So AudioEye has volunteered their time and their platform to make this USBLN Certification and Sourcing Hub just incredible, accessible, compliant, and more. So while that's a great example, let's just get to the point. The call to action, right? Number one we need to raise awareness, take action and we need to talk about it. And number 2: We need to take simple steps. Systemic change is always created by incremental successes. So let's implement the innovation that's exist on our career sites, on our HR portals, external Web sites to remove these obstacles. And a mentor of mine, great businessman, shared with me advice a handful of years ago and he learned this from his father at a young age. I

actually think he adapted the Edmund Burke triumph of evil quote. But he told me that injustice does not exist because bad people do bad things. Russ actually said that injustice exists because good people take no action. So thank you for joining Bender, AudioEye, the panel today, on this crusade to tear down that shameful web of exclusion. Thank you.

(Applause)

>> CAMI TURCOTTE: I'm back again.I'd like to take a few minutes and introduce you to the

USBLN certification sourcing HUB. This is a project that's very dear and near to my heart, I've been working on it with Patricia, all of our corporate partners involved in the project. Some suppliers have done some testing. And it's been a very long road but I'd love to show you guys just a quick preview of it.

The system was designed would be a one stop shop for applicants, sourcing personnel and administrative work to be done in the disability supplier program. The hub is a 3 sided system which allows applicants to enter and apply for certification. It also allows the national certification committee and the DSDP team to handle all administrative decisions to be made on applications. Once applicants are certified T allows them to access certificate, logos and other wonderful benefits. The final piece of the system allows corporate partners to enter and search for suppliers at any given time. And it's also fully accessible.

As the director of business relations, and strategic partnerships, Liz Taub works closely with DSDP to find support for key initiatives like the Certification and Sourcing Hub. Thank you, Liz. Patricia and I greatly appreciate your consistent and ever-waving support.

[Applause.]>> ELIZABETH TAUB: So many of USBLN's programs would not

exist without the thought leadership, investment and expertise of Mitsubishi, Northrop Grumman, and Wells Fargo. Specifically we'd like to thank Kevin Webb, Gloria Pualani, sand Sandra Evers-Manly and Regina Heyward.

Without these individuals, the HUB would not exist as a way to seamlessly connect disability-owned business enterprises and service-disabled veteran-owned enterprises to contracts and financial independence.

In addition, we'd like to thank our technology partner AudioEye and specifically their CEO Todd Boncophere for their endless support and guidance to make sure that the HUB is completely accessible to all users.

If you are a business looking to make your technology more accessible, find AudioEye at the Expo hall.

Being part of the USBLN is not only about contracting with DOBEs. It's also about helping DOBEs grow and cultivate their businesses.

Inclusion of disability-owned businesses and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses tens to lag behind that of other diverse supplier groups.

According to a Harvard Business Review survey of CEOs with formal mentoring programs, 70% of mentored businesses survived over five years, double the rate of those who did not receive mentorship.

Information, education, and access to decision-makers are all vital solution components.

The program matches mentees or DOBEs with committed, experienced, and business savvy corporate partners.

If you are a partner interested in becoming a mentor to a disability-owned business or a service-disabled veteran-owned business, please find me.

We'd like to thank Merck for becoming our first founding partner of the USBLN mentoring and development program.

[Applause.]Specifically we'd like to thank Nora Velle for always and

consistently going above and beyond. If you're in this room and you don't know Nora, you're missing out.

[Applause.]Warren Buffett was mentored by Benjamin Graham. Mark

Benioff was mentored by Steve Jobs. Loris Myers was mentored by Larry Page. If you're a corporate partner interested in becoming a founding partner and investing to help us make sure that the next known mentor pair comes out of the disability community, please find me. Thank you.

>> CAMI TURCOTTE: Just need to do a few more things before we roll into the last part of the program. I'd like to thank Jason Moore a member of our intern DSDP and USA who is the creative force between the architecture design behind the USBLN certification and sourcing hub. We've been working with the VIVA team to bring this to fruition. Sumalya Sundaram director client relations is with us today and I would like to have her stand.

Sumalya Sundaram.I'm now going it turn it over to Patricia to talk more about

pitch tank.>> PATRICIA RICHARDS: Thank you, Cami, we're getting close

to the end. Thank you for your patience. We started a few minutes late and we just have a little bit more to tell you. Over the past several years we've had something called Entrepreneurial Idol and we've had our DOBEs and SDV-DOBEs compete for that and for prizes like cash and business meetings. And with wonderful judges making the final decision. This year

we started something new. American Idol is going away. So we're going to start something new. So we have the new DOBE pitch tank competition and I'm hoping up on screen you'll see this beautiful graphic created by one of our DOBEs Tic Toc. And we're really excited about this. And we'd like to thank Regina for bringing this to fruition and introducing us to Rodney. Who is going to take a big part in tomorrow's judging and selection event.

The focus of the DOBE pitch tank competition is on getting that new idea based on innovation and technology which creates real value. I'd like to take time to thank AT&T and Wells Fargo our pitch tank competition sponsors. So how does it work? Basically, again, you've all seen Shark Tank. And the idea is over the past several months DOBEs had an opportunity to submit a one to two page business plan that explains their great new idea in using technology.

And from that executive summary looking at things like scalability, marketability, et~cetera, we selected four companies to ultimately present tomorrow night. So, if we can bring up that slide. So the four companies are SocialRank and you've just heard Alex Taub. Add vocations notable Lindsey. Our ability, John Robinson, and tech True Up, Dennis Parker. Can the lights come up. Let's have them raise their hands or stand over here, stand up. Wave your hand. Thank you, guys. We're looking forward to hearing from you tomorrow.

Just a couple more really quick things and I know our time is running out.

They're going to be vying for some fantastic prizes and we want to thank our corporate sponsors that have helped us in that regard. Cash prizes of over $5,000. Some other wonderful things like gift cards. I mean, a lot of money in gift cards from our wonderful corporate sponsors. Amazon Echo, and the all-important business executive meetings where they have a chance to talk about getting business contracts.

So I'd like to thank Wells Fargo, AT&T, Northrop Grumman, Sanofi, Merck. Walmart, EY, Capital One, Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Marriott for such great support. Whenever we call on you for support, you're there for us. Thank you for that. And Cami is going to close out giving extra special thanks to other supporters.

>> CAMI TURCOTTE: Absolutely. Promise we're almost done. Just want to thank our pitch tank judges, the wonderful companies again who contributed prizes and business meetings, our executive exclusive airline hosts for DOBEs attending conference, United Airlines. We also want to thank our leadership awards judges, DSDP founding partners, national certification committee members, procurement councils. We really could not do it without each of you so thank you so much for your continued support.

[Applause.]>> PATRICIA RICHARDS: That brings us to a close. Thank you

all for being here. We look forward to seeing you later for the other events. We have several receptions going on, networking events. The Business to Business Expo opens tonight. I know you're going to be there. We have a lineup of wonderful things tomorrow. Have a good evening. Thank you.

***This text is being provided in a rough draft Format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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