While many executives and government leaders huddle with employees and talk about ramping up diversity among their contractors, it’s the ones who rigorously check the data and follow up who are doing things right, according to Boston-area nonprofit leaders, advocates and small business owners. Darrell Byers, CEO of Boston-based nonprofit Interise , says procurement practices won’t change — and nor will the region’s stark racial wealth gap — if there aren’t overhauls “from the top down, and that includes companies, state governments and city governments.” During a Thursday Interise panel and networking session at the Echelon Innovation Center, Byers painted a picture of an area where not enough companies and government leaders are fully engaged in supplier diversity — even with ample federal pandemic relief and infrastructure funds just waiting to be tapped into. “There are still mayors in this state who have this funding just sitting there doing nothing, and we tell them they can use that to grow minority businesses, and they sit there in amazement,” he said. “With the people you hire, you’re actually impacting a community, and that’s a message we’ve got to get across.” Moderated by public relations executive Colette Phillips, Byers was joined […]
