As the Director of Supplier Diversity for Eaton, Karmell Thomas leverages her engineering background coupled with her program management skills to find unique, innovative, and sustainable ways to ensure fair and equitable access and opportunity for all. Every employee with purchasing power contributes to the overall success of the intentionally inclusive supply chain. Karmell ensures that each decision-maker has the training and engagement to support supplier diversity. She credits an organizational commitment that starts in the C-suite to the successful model of inclusion and diversity that positively impacts communities of operation.
The dramatic speed of technology and social changes in recent years led Karmell and other leaders to re-examine how the supplier community is engaged. She has taken bold steps to grow the supplier diversity program and to improve resiliency in the face of market volatility. Karmell believes all suppliers are partners in organizational success. Her strategies support the intentionally inclusive organizational culture and transparency, with the supplier diversity goals and achievements detailed in the I&D transparency report. A new milestone of over $900 million spent with diverse suppliers was reached in 2022.