2023 TOP 25 WOMEN IN POWER IMPACTING DIVERSITY SPECIAL FEATURE


Erika Gibson Develops Liberty Mutual’s 3-Year Strategic Plan for Supplier Diversity

Erika Gibson is the AVP & Director, Supplier Diversity, Procurement for Liberty Mutual. She built a full-time dedicated supplier diversity team in 2021. To ensure growth, she developed a 3-year strategic plan focused on two key priorities: increasing diverse supplier spend and cultivating a support ecosystem to promote a more robust and inclusive supply chain. Erika garnered leadership involvement, set objectives and performance goals impacting business units, expanded supplier diversity education and training, and implemented multi-year supplier diversity planning and reporting. As a result, the supplier diversity program has tripled spend, exceeded the diverse sourcing inclusion rate, and increased Tier 2 enrollment.

To adapt to rapid technological and social changes, Erika is implementing and facilitating the modernization of technology and tools for Supplier Diversity and Sustainable Sourcing. She believes the strong top-down support the program receives is critical to its success and supports an organizational ecosystem of inclusion. Erika partnered with the seven Employee Resource Groups to launch the first Holiday Catalog of diverse-owned businesses and recently hosted the second annual Supplier Diversity Summit on May 25th.

Favorite Quote: We will all, at some point, encounter hurdles to gaining access and entry, moving up and conquering self-doubt; but on the other side is the capacity to own opportunity and tell our own story. — Stacey Abrams