Hello, this is Austan Goolsby, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. We are pleased to welcome you to the Chicago Fed's 10th annual Business Smart Week. Our signature supplier diversity event, Business Smart Week, serves as a valuable resource for small businesses and diverse business owners across the region. Each year, we offer a variety of expert-led sessions to help you develop the tools and networks you need to better manage and grow your business.
At the Chicago Fed, we are deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion at every level of our organization. In addition to our talent recruitment, career development, economic research, and community volunteerism, supplier diversity supports our vision of promoting a healthy, stable, and inclusive economy and a financial system with opportunities for everyone to thrive. is an essential part of it. We strive to integrate supplier diversity into our processes, grow our spend with these companies, and adopt industry best practices to drive a culture of continuous improvement.
Over the past five years, we have been able to achieve a diversified spend increase of over 20% across the bank. Fittingly, the theme of Business Smart Week 2023 is “Equity in Business: Inclusion – The Path Forward.”
The pandemic has hit minority-owned businesses and communities hard. However, as we recover from COVID-19, there are some hopeful signs that a strong economic recovery could help minority-owned business communities thrive and reduce inequality. It was done. However, despite some improvements in incomes and employment, we know that there are still many challenges to overcome. For example, minority-owned businesses continue to report having more difficulty accessing credit.
And while the pandemic has spurred the creation of new businesses, minority entrepreneurship, particularly Black-owned businesses, remains underrepresented. According to a 2022 Brookings Institution report1 African Americans make up 14% of the U.S. population, but only about 2.3% of owners of businesses with employees, according to a co-authored book by Kristen Brody, who currently heads the Chicago Fed's Economic Mobility Project. It's nothing more than that.
This year's Business Smart Week program will feature discussions with prominent diverse business owners and corporate CEOs about how to remove barriers to growth for minority businesses. Among its many topics are how access to sustainable capital resources and certification can drive business, and the expansion of the CTA and its Red Line, which will include 16 organizations as of 2024. You'll also hear about important signing opportunities with organizations like the Big Ten Conference. school in it. But that's something else entirely.
On behalf of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, I would like to thank our speakers, panelists, and attendees for their time and expertise on these important issues. And I would like to give special thanks to Mark Hands, Director of Supplier Diversity at the Chicago Fed, for his deep commitment and leadership over the years. Thank you to everyone who joined us today and for all you do to support our community.
Note
1 Perry et al. (2022).
reference
Perry, Andre M., Regina Theo, Anthony Barr, Karl Romer, and Kristen Brody, 2022, “Black-Owned Businesses in U.S. Cities: Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities for Thriving,” Brookings Institution. Brookings Subway Report, February 14, available online.
