Beverly Norman-Cooper, former Executive Director of Supplier Diversity and Sustainability at Kaiser Permanente, shares her background and history which fed her desire to champion diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her work at Kaiser Permanente contributed to many businesses being offered opportunities based on their merits and capabilities. She continues to push for change and find ways to encourage businesses to get involved in change for good. She shares her thoughts on the recent Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action in college admissions and the implications for workplace diversity, philanthropy, and supplier diversity. She offers practical suggestions for businesses on ways to engage and promote diversity. Read More

Anna Maria Florio creates harmony in her demonstration kitchen, La Cucina at the Market. An alum from the Inner City Capital Connections (ICCC) Philadelphia 2021 cohort, Florio mixes ingredients and community building to create a thriving business that brings people together. From corporate bonding events to couples’ pasta-making classes and bridesmaids’ parties, Florio helps folks in her kitchen work together. Read More

Jennifer Pinck, Boston ABC, MBA, MCPPO, is a living legend in the construction industry. She was one of the first women to enter the field, working in the building trades in the late 1970s and as a field engineer and construction superintendent on commercial projects and historic renovations in the early to mid-80s. She earned an MBA from Simmons Graduate School of Management in 1986, the same year she received an ABC Boston Building License – becoming the first woman in Massachusetts to do so. Read More

Forward Financing offers its customers $1,000 if they complete ICIC’s small business educational programs The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and Forward Financing, a Boston-based financial technology (fintech) company, have formed a new partnership to further expand the financial opportunity Forward Financing offers their customers, including tuition-free business education programs. As ... Read More

Asian poverty is often overlooked. The model minority myth describes Asian Americans as uniformly affluent and educated. Yet many Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) groups have high poverty levels. Treating Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as one uniform group fails to recognize the diversity in poverty rates among ethnic groups and ignores the many AAPI groups in which poverty is a major problem. Read More