As director of supply chain diversity at Office Depot, Robert McCormes- Ballou forms strong partnerships with historically underutilized businesses and seeks them through vendor fairs, trade shows and organizational involvement. The company also offers them opportunity equality in the vendor selection process. Through efforts spearheaded by him, sales of products from W/MBEs in 2008 exceeded $500 million.

It is important to Office Depot that its supplier base accurately represents the diversity of its customers. McCormes-Ballou’s job is to ensure the company has a diverse representation of suppliers throughout the entire supply chain process. To him, the greatest supply chain diversity challenge is challenging the status quo by demonstrating how current processes either waste money or reduce revenue potential.

Under his leadership, the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council has placed Office Depot on its top corporations list as has DiversityBusiness.com for multiple years, and Office Depot has won CEO and corporation of the year awards from the Florida Minority Supplier Development Council.

Favorite Quote

“Rarely do we find men (or women) who willingly engage in hard solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” - Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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