St. Louis Business Diversity Connect 2018

About This Event

Join us for a unique, one-day event that will provide diverse business owners an opportunity to meet with and pitch their business to procurement representatives and supplier diversity managers from government entities and corporations. Minority, women, veteran and other underrepresented business owners from St. Louis and across the Midwest are welcome. The event will feature vendors and national corporations invited by nationally recognized certification organizations such as the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NSMDC) and the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) through the Women’s Business Development Center.

The activities will include a networking breakfast followed by workshops on social media boosting your business, an advancing supplier diversity roundtable for procurement professionals, an exhibit hall, a matchmaking event, and Pitch STL, an opportunity for diverse suppliers to deliver a 3-minute pitch to a panel of supplier diversity and procurement professionals, and small business experts. There will also be a keynote presentation at lunch by Dr. Cheryl Watkins-Moore, Director of Bioscience & Entrepreneurial Inclusion, BioSTL, on “The ROI of Supplier Diversity.”

The presenting corporate sponsors include Express Scripts and Monsanto. The event is hosted by local community organizations: the Women’s Business Development Center, Mid-States Minority Supplier Development Council, St. Louis Minority Business Council, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Minority Business Development Agency, St. Louis.