New York officials tout success at annual MWBE conference

At the fifth annual MWBE Forum in Albany, Cuomo administration officials made a verbal victory lap about the state’s minority- and women-owned business enterprises program while stressing there is still more work to be done.

 “Since I was sworn in as lieutenant governor in January, I have covered every corner of this state, hit almost every community many times, and everywhere I go I convene gatherings of people,” Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul said during the forum. “The message I hear is uniform: They’re excited about being a part of New York’s recovery, there’s a lot going on, there’s a lot of opportunity, but sometimes they think there are barriers to getting involved.”

In 2011, the year Gov. Andrew Cuomo took office, the state awarded 10 percent of its contracts to MWBEs. At last year’s MWBE Forum, the governor announced the state had awarded 25 percent of contracts to MWBEs and announced a new goal of 30 percent.

The governor’s counsel, Alphonso David, noted that this year’s forum was even more successful than last year’s, with more than 2,000 in attendance – making it the country’s largest MWBE forum.

The first MWBE program was created in 1992 by then-New York City Mayor David Dinkins. A featured speaker at the forum, Dinkins looked back on his initiative’s success.

“We set goals and it worked. It wasn’t easily done because there were those that resisted our efforts,” said Dinkins, who was the city’s first black mayor. “We started out to try to get to 20 percent and when I left office we were at something like 17.5 percent and I was very pleased.”

When Rudy Giuliani took office in 1994, he ended the program, calling it “reverse discrimination” and “bad social policy.” The program was not revived until 2003, under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, who was the first black female CEO to head a Fortune 500, touted her company’s diversity efforts and explained how changing policy goes a long way in fixing diversity problems in the private sector.

“We do offer one cautionary note: There is no one-size-fits-all approach for solving this problem,” Burns said. “What works for government may not work for business and vice versa. Of course, changing policy will help, but that alone cannot fix everything.”

The private sector must internalize diversity as a priority, has to make it actionable and has to hire, promote and invest in women and minorities, Burns said.

“Diversity is hard,” she said. “It’s not easy, but it’s fun and it’s interesting.”