UVA and Community Partners help chart the future of SWaM

Procurement and Supplier Diversity Services has pulled the expertise of UVA colleagues and community partners into an Advisory Group that will help define the future vision, scope, and success measures of the UVA Supplier Diversity program.

In sessions held between October and December of 2020, the Advisory Group will work through current state challenges, scope and success measures, and strategies for the future.

The group will identify challenges to address, establish measurements of success, draft a vision for the program, and build strategies that should be incorporated into SWaM's operational practices. Another big priority is identifying the behaviors and practices that will move us toward addressing identified challenges, and ultimately, fulfilling the vision of the program.

The SWaM Advisory Group members are:

• Mark Cartwright, Director of Supplier Diversity, Hanger Inc.
• Syd Dorsey, Management Consultant
• Emily Douglas, Diversity & Inclusion Program Manager, UVA Facilities Management
• Quinton Harrell, Founder, Heritage United Builders, and Chairman, Charlottesville Minority Business Alliance
• Yolunda Harrell, CEO and Founder, New Hill Development and Community Leader
• Augie Maurelli, Associate Vice President for Financial Operations, UVA
• Kevin McDonald, Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Community Partnerships, UVA
• Ridge Schuyler, Dean of Community Self-Sufficiency Programs, Piedmont Virginia Community College
• George Southwell, Associate Director for UVA Health Construction
• Jenn Glassman, Director of Procurement and Supplier Diversity Services, UVA

While the Advisory Group assists SWaM with its vision for the future and the stepping stones it will take to get there, the department is hard at work under the interim leadership of Lorie Strother and Kristin Floyd. 

 SWaM's current priorities outside of the programmatic review include sourcing SWaM suppliers for active construction projects, building a new data model for supplier diversity metrics, and creating a SWaM marketplace for improved access to goods and services.
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Watch for more updates on SWaM at UVA soon!