As the Supplier Diversity Manager at Boston Scientific, Saken Khokhar is driven by the desire to bring sustainable and meaningful change to people facing inconceivable discrimination due to race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, disabilities, age, and more. She strives to grow the supplier diversity program as a path for bringing change through diverse suppliers, and helping organizational members and communities better understand social justice issues. In her experience, people often go about their daily lives unaware of the issues, when not impacted by discrimination.
Under Saken’s leadership, the supplier diversity program has made tremendous impact. She credits the full support of senior level leaders for enabling diversity to become a core value that extends to the supply chain, and she is supported by commitment in the sourcing and procurement processes. Saken generates real change by setting goals and developing strategies that are driven from the top down and bottom up. She also notes that funding is crucial to ensuring proper staffing, gaining memberships in key advocacy organizations, and getting the right tools for data tracking and analysis.