For decades, Altria's companies have worked to strengthen communities by reaching out to a diverse base of suppliers, including minority-owned and women-owned businesses. Our senior management emphasizes the importance of this commitment by tracking and communicating performance throughout our companies.
“The National Minority Supplier Development Council has had a relationship with Altria and its companies for about 30 years. Altria has long supported our national council through sponsorship and membership. Their employees have served us faithfully in leadership roles and the company’s engagement, at various levels, supports our mission to link Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American suppliers with opportunity. Altria continues to set an outstanding example for other corporations through its utilization of minority suppliers and developmental initiatives for minority business owners.”
-Joset B. Wright, President, National Minority Supplier Development Council, Inc.®
By tapping into the energy and ingenuity of hundreds of minority-owned and women-owned enterprises, our companies receive products and services that make their operations more efficient and profitable. Their supplier diversity development programs also help strengthen communities by creating more businesses, more entrepreneurship, more business training and more employment.
As a result of this effort, minority-owned and women-owned businesses provide a wide range of essential goods and services to several of Altria’s companies including logistics, warehousing, staffing, marketing services, electrical services and office supplies.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT & SUPPLIER DIVERSITY
For over 30 years DSC Logistics, a woman-owned business, has supplied our tobacco companies with logistical support. In 2008, DSC Logistics received Altria’s first Supplier Achievement award in the area of customer service and merchandising. “The strength of the [relationship] is based on being able to agree on standards and meet them,” DSC Logistics President Ann Drake explained. “We work well together because we share the same goals. As Altria and its companies navigate change on many fronts, we remain flexible. It’s in our best interest to see them continue to succeed.”
During the construction of its Center for Research & Technology, one of the single largest investments in downtown Richmond history, Philip Morris USA launched an advisory council that included representatives from the Virginia Minority Supplier Development Council and local government. Together, they developed an outreach and communication strategy to reach as many minority-owned and women-owned business enterprises as possible with contracting opportunities. This approach earned PM USA the 2009 “Vision of Excellence” award by the Metropolitan Business League of Richmond, Va.
SUPPORTING SUPPLIER DIVERSITY DEVELOPMENT
In 2009, Altria Group joined with other Richmond-based companies to establish a new Minority Business Executive Management Program at the University of Richmond's Robins School of Business. Learn More
