Economic Inclusion
Commitment, Accountability, Leadership
Economic inclusion is a core value at the Port Authority. We welcome all prospective vendors without regard to the business owners’ race, gender, or company size. This commitment is embedded in our Economic Inclusion Policy, which aims to empower Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs), Women Business Enterprises (WBEs), and Small Business Enterprises (SBEs).
By empowering entrepreneurs, the Port Authority helps generate jobs, build our tax base and provide opportunities for wealth creation in every segment of our society. We regularly communicate this vision to all of our partners, including staff, project teams and stakeholders, real estate and development professionals, economic development professionals, and public officials.
To sharpen our focus on inclusion, the Port Authority established a Director of Economic Inclusion position. The person in this role is charged with implementing the inclusion policy across our organization, monitoring our activities to identify opportunities for improvement, and incorporating best practices to meet our established goals.
Working Together to Win
We begin early in the project planning phase of development; we identify the core competencies required of suppliers; and we identify MBE, WBE and SBE firms with these capabilities through extensive community outreach.
We have developed an Economic Inclusion Database with nearly 500 MBE, WBE, and SBE companies. This database can be sorted by a company’s core competency or areas of professional expertise, and is a proven tool for identifying diverse suppliers to help meet business needs on our administrative, brownfield or financing projects. Combining this database and our market knowledge, we have helped our brownfield and financing project teams identify qualified MBE, WBE and SBE suppliers.
We benchmark our processes with regional and national best practices. We also network and collaborate with several local, like-minded organizations, such as South Central Ohio Minority Business Council, Commercial Real Estate Women, Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky African American Chamber of Commerce, and Cincinnati USA Hispanic Chamber.
By empowering entrepreneurs, the Port Authority helps generate jobs, build our tax base and provide opportunities for wealth creation in every segment of our society. We regularly communicate this vision to all of our partners, including staff, project teams and stakeholders, real estate and development professionals, economic development professionals, and public officials.
To sharpen our focus on inclusion, the Port Authority established a Director of Economic Inclusion position. The person in this role is charged with implementing the inclusion policy across our organization, monitoring our activities to identify opportunities for improvement, and incorporating best practices to meet our established goals.
Working Together to Win
We begin early in the project planning phase of development; we identify the core competencies required of suppliers; and we identify MBE, WBE and SBE firms with these capabilities through extensive community outreach.
We have developed an Economic Inclusion Database with nearly 500 MBE, WBE, and SBE companies. This database can be sorted by a company’s core competency or areas of professional expertise, and is a proven tool for identifying diverse suppliers to help meet business needs on our administrative, brownfield or financing projects. Combining this database and our market knowledge, we have helped our brownfield and financing project teams identify qualified MBE, WBE and SBE suppliers.
We benchmark our processes with regional and national best practices. We also network and collaborate with several local, like-minded organizations, such as South Central Ohio Minority Business Council, Commercial Real Estate Women, Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky African American Chamber of Commerce, and Cincinnati USA Hispanic Chamber.