‘Unprecedented opportunity’: Minority business leaders push for bigger financial slice

Hundreds of Black and brown business owners from across America came to Miami Beach’s W South Beach hotel on Tuesday for the start of the National Minority Supplier Development Council’s Miami Business Economic Forum.

Speakers like Miami native U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, NFL Hall of Famer, businessman and Palm Beach County resident Cris Carter and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez delivered remarks at the two-day conference focused on helping minority enterprises and their leaders overcome systemic challenges to business growth and wealth building.

On Wednesday, former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros and JP Morgan Chase chief procurement officer Jim Connell are scheduled to speak at the invitation-only forum.

In conjunction with panel discussions and networking Tuesday, the organization released an annual report with financial data on U.S. minority enterprises certified to compete for government contracts.

In Florida, the number of certified minority-owned businesses increased last year to 251 from 206 in 2021. Although those companies secured government contracts worth $1.5 billion in 2022 — $300 million more than the prior year — their payrolls shrank to 8,258 employees from 9,472 in 2021.

“There’s unprecedented opportunity to participate in state and local government funding flowing into Miami,” Ying McGuire, first Asian American CEO of the minority supplier development council. “It’s very important for minority-owned businesses in Miami and across the country to take advantage of that.”

In Miami, minority companies continue getting a disproportionate share of local and state government contracts. In October, 48 Black business leaders and clergy pushed for economic support for Miami-Dade County’s local Black business community.

They cited a 2015 Miami-Dade study concluding that at the time only 2% of the county’s Black business community participated in the governmental business engine, even though Blacks comprised nearly 20% of the county’s population. The study was the most recent available on the topic.

“There are too many small minority-owned businesses in Miami that don’t know” about the national minority business development council, MasTec CEO Jose Mas, who earned a master’s degree in business administration at University of Miami, said Tuesday at the conference.

“Part of this summit is to really get the community to understand” what the development council does, he said, and “how it can help businesses not just in Miami, but across the nation.”

A son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio, a Republican senator, affirmed the need for support of minority businesses in his remarks Tuesday at the forum.

Bolstering minority companies is “creating wealth opportunities to change the world and level the playing field,” the congressman said.

Republica Havas Chairman Jorge A. Plasencia moderated a panel discussion with Alesandro DiNello, CEO of Michigan-based Flagstar Bank, and Denny’s CEO Robert Verostek about the need for business owners to have solutions to operate effectively with inflation and U.S. recession threats prevalent.

Verostek said business leaders should prioritize hiring and retaining diverse workers, while DiNello noted the importance of entrepreneurs having good relationships with their bankers.

Carter, who played wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins in 2002 at the end of his stellar professional football career, spoke about the necessity for diversity in business leadership. As chairman of CB Tech, a facilities management firm, he said minority companies should have access to more economic opportunities.

Growing up in Middletown, Ohio, Carter, an All-American football player at Ohio State University, saw how poverty made his childhood difficult and he, therefore, sees diversity in businesses as a way to uplift communities of color.

“Invest in people,” he said, at the economic forum. “Be careful what the hell you say to people. One day, you need to vouch for someone. Put your word on that person and make it good.”

As forum attendees prepared to sit down for a catered lunch Tuesday at the W hotel, Carter’s push for greater corporate diversity resonated with the audience of Black and brown business owners and their allies.

“Diversity is a fact,” he said. “Inclusion is a choice.”