During a Top 50 Talk titled “Building Trust and Economic Empowerment Through Supplier Diversity” at Fair360’s (formerly Fair360, formerly DiversityInc) Top 50 event, Shannon Schuyler, Chief Purpose and Inclusion Officer at PwC (a Hall of Fame company), discussed how supplier diversity is a crucial tool for economic empowerment of underserved communities.
PwC has set a goal to award 40% of its reportable spend to diverse suppliers by 2026 and 50% of its suppliers to have science-based targets to reduce their own climate impact by 2025.
Schuyler emphasized the importance of trust in business and society and highlighted the Trust Leadership Institute that PwC has started to help executives build and maintain trust.
“[The institute] looks to get 10,000 executives to help them to understand, how do they build trust? What are some of the common things you need to have and really learn? How do you keep it sustainable?” she said.
The company has been working with Sandra Sucher, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School, on the Trust Leadership Institute. Schuyler said Sucher focuses on four main areas to build and maintain trust:
- Competency: Home in on a skill you can consistently deliver.
- A mission: Why are you building trust?
- The means to do it: The method by which you will stimulate trust.
- Impact: How do you measure trust and how it correlates to supplier diversity?
Schuyler related these competencies to supplier diversity, emphasizing that it is an incredible way to build trust but can also lead to a loss of trust, given the various stakeholders involved.
Click here for more articles, videos and photos from the 2023 Top 50 event.
