NXTComm honors executives, MBEs

The Telecommunications Industry Group, an industry committee of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, partnered with NXTcomm to integrate DiversityNXT throughout NXTcomm,
recently in Chicago. Joan Kerr, executive director of supplier diversity at AT&T and
Denise Coley, director of global supplier business development at Cisco, were co-chairpersons for DiversityNXT, which demonstrated how diverse suppliers can be competitive in the fields of information
communications and entertainment technology.
Maureen Merkle, president of procurement for AT&T, served as host of an Executive Forum that addressed how best the industry can include diverse suppliers in next-generation supply chains. The fol­lowing DiversityNXT Awards were pre­sented:

• Trailblazer Award – Robert (Bob) L. Johnson, founder and chairman of RLJ Companies and founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET)
• DiversityNXTGen Award – Motorola Inc.
• DiversityNXTSolutions Award – Glow Networks

The awards were presented to individ­uals and companies that have made an impact in the “next generation” of the telecommunications industry. In addition, a documentary on how diverse suppliers are participating in IPTV supply chains pre­miered at the gala reception.