Serving as a change catalyst, Candace Barnes, Vice President, Global Head of Diversity, Talent, & Culture at Papa Johns, believes successful supplier diversity programs are built on the foundation of relationships, data, and operational efficiency. Relationships include internal cross-functional relationships and external partners with advocacy organizations like the NMSDC, WBENC and NGLCC. Candace leverages data and strategic technology partners, like Supplier I/O, to understand diverse spend and opportunity areas. Operational efficiency is pursued through actions like building elements and requirements for supplier diversity into the RFP process.
Utilizing a solution like Supplier I/O led to an examination of data integrity, created data governance, and ensured a repeatable process was in place to have a trustworthy baseline and foundation. Candace uses the information intentionally to build relationships. For example, the data is leveraged to identify all diverse supplier spend, even with suppliers she is unaware of being diverse. Candace is working on transforming supplier diversity into business inclusion. She has been instrumental in making Papa Johns one of the few quick service restaurant chains in the supplier diversity space.