SOUTH BEND, Ind. (September 25, 2019) -- On Thursday, September 19th, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the South Bend - Elkhart Regional Partnership hosted its first roundtable event. Centered around implementation and execution of diversity programs, the roundtables were comprised of key leaders from across the region's private and public sector.

The event, Driving Diversity: A Roundtable Discussion, featured guest speaker, Reginald E. Humphrey, senior manager of supplier diversity at General Motors - Global Purchasing & Supply Chain. Humphrey shared insights on GM's development of their supplier diversity program and internal inclusion efforts, noting that GM was the first automotive OEM to establish a formal supplier diversity program in 1968. The purpose of this discussion was to present a model that works on a global scale so that employers in the South Bend - Elkhart Region can apply it within their respective entities.

Diversity & Inclusion Committee Co-Chairs, Tracy Graham, founder and CEO of Graham Allen Partners, a private investment firm which owns the largest technology based company in the region, and Amish Shah, CEO of Kem Krest, a Tier 1 supplier to GM and certified Minority Business Enterprise by the National Minority Supplier Development Council, compelled the executives in the room to take action as it relates to diversity and inclusion.

"The next generation is going to be more diverse and by acting with inclusive intentions our region can gain a competitive advantage in the talent war," said Graham. "It's imperative to understand that everyone matters."

As the Diversity & Inclusion Committee for the Regional Partnership continues to build out a scalable and sustainable collective impact model, more programmatic opportunities will become available.

"We, as a committee, are focused on the economic impact of engaging the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs, and to do that we need the current generation to take action," said Shah. "We need everyone to commit to engaging with the strategies we as a region have defined around diversity and inclusion."