The winners of the MSDUK Awards have been announced. From one of the best-known names in the world, META, to startup entrepreneurs, the MSDUK Awards winners clearly recognise those businesses working hard to make supply chains both inclusive and competitive.

The MSDUK Awards celebrated the outstanding people and organisations in the MSDUK Network and were presented at the 9th bi-annual gala. The evening was hosted by the British actor, comedian, singer, television presenter and writer, Sir Lenny Henry CBE.

The six winners beat off the stiff competition, and entries were scrutinised by a global panel of judges, including Nestle, GSK and Supply Nation representatives.

The winners are:

Established corporate Supplier Diversity programme – CBRE

Emerging Corporate Supplier Diversity Programme – META

Supplier Diversity Advocate of the Year – Krystle Sands, META

High Growth Business of the year – Xalient

Entrepreneur of the year – Sherry Vaswani, Xalient

Business Woman of the year – Julianne Ponan, Creative Nature

Global Supplier Diversity Advocate of the Year - Nedra Dickson, Accenture

Winner of the innovation Challenge - Sheana Yu – Aergo Health

Talking about the MSDUK Awards, Sherry Vaswani, Group Chief Executive Officer at Xalient and winner of the High Growth Business and Entrepreneur categories this year, said, "MSDUK does a first-class job in shining a light on ethnic minority-led businesses that may have something unique to offer given their diversity - innovation for example. Their work in helping open doors for young entrepreneurs and guiding them on how to succeed with large corporates is much needed and brings a whole new approach to improving the diversity in supply chains."

Mayank Shah, Founder & CEO of Minority Supplier Development UK (MSDUK), looks back on the progression of MSDUK over the last 16 years and said, "It's great to see how far we have progressed and even more so to see how supplier diversity has now taken centre stage in corporate procurement strategies 2022 has seen over 100 global and British companies join MSDUK and opening up business opportunities for ethnic minority businesses. Supplier diversity programmes help address the issue of economic inequality and encourage entrepreneurship in under-represented communities."

James Lloyd, Procurement Director, CBRE and winner of the established corporate supplier diversity programme category, said, "At CBRE, we build and maintain strong, diverse supplier relationships for an equitable and inclusive supply chain. These relationships are important in creating winning outcomes for our clients, employees and shareholders. Furthermore, engaging with diverse partners supports businesses in our community and strengthens our equitable and inclusive supply chain. We are very proud to be selected as the winner of the Established Corporate Supplier Diversity category of the MSDUK Awards. It is wonderful recognition for our team and the partners we work with up and down the supply chain to deliver these outcomes."

The three day MSDUK Conference drew in over 1,100 attendees which included over 400 buyers and and supplier diversity leaders from more than 75 global brands. Over 500 ethnic minority businesses attended from across the globe, including the UK Europe, South Africa, Canada and USA. Following the conference, the winner of each award category was announced last at the prestigious MSDUK Business Awards ceremony in London on 8th September 2022.

You can find out more about the awards and MSDUK at More Details .