Where Performance Breaks — And the System Most Leaders Never Build | Ron Garnett

What if the real barrier to growth isn’t opportunity—but access, structure, and alignment?

In this episode of TalkStory Media: Business Edition, William Peetoom sits down with Ron Garnett, President & CEO of the Council for Supplier Diversity, for a grounded and insightful conversation on how businesses actually scale within complex ecosystems—and why many never break through.

Ron brings a rare blend of executive leadership, corporate strategy, and community impact. With a background spanning Fortune 100 companies, organizational development, and consulting with global brands like Bose and Southeast Toyota, he now leads one of the region’s most important nonprofit organizations focused on connecting diverse businesses to major corporate supply chains and economic opportunity.

This conversation goes beyond surface-level advice. It reveals the system.

At a high level, we explore:
 • Why supplier diversity is more than compliance—it’s economic infrastructure
 • The real gap between prime contractors and subcontractors—and why it’s hard to break in
 • How high-performance supplier programs develop real leadership, not just capability
 • The role of community, mentorship, and ecosystem alignment in business growth
 • Why many small businesses struggle with financial strategy and HR compliance—and how to correct it
 • The concept of Economic Empowerment Zones and how they create full-circle impact

Ron also shares his personal “why”—transitioning from corporate success to community impact—and what it truly means to operate as a servant leader in business.

This episode is for business owners, operators, and leaders who are serious about growth—but recognize that growth requires more than effort. It requires access, structure, and the right relationships.

Because at the end of the day, success isn’t just about what you build.

It’s about how you’re positioned within the system.

👉 Connect with Ron Garnett:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronald-b-garnett-304b6815/

👉 Next Step:
If you want to evaluate how your business is structured for growth, run a complimentary Capital Efficiency Snapshot™ or schedule a strategy session: https://calendly.com/kaizengroup

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William Peetoom, Commissioner - Executive Producer & Co-Host: Business Dev. Advocate - A Modern-Day Urban Robinhood | Blue Zone Living Benefits Insurance - Broker/Agent, Licensed Life & Health Insurance Professional | CA License #4347307
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning and welcome to Talk Story Media with your host, Kuya William Pitum. Today we have an amazing guest, Ron Garnett from the Council for Supply Diversity. He is a leader in our business community, a catalyst for leadership, uh elevating small business owners, and just helping the supply chain and procurement space. So without further ado, Ron Garnett.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hey, hello William, thank you so much for uh that intro. It's uh it's a pleasure to be with you. Um you know, my name is Ron Garnett. I'm the president and CEO for the Council for Supply Diversity, just by way of introduction. Um and the Council for Supply Diversity is a uh 501c3 nonprofit organization that um takes supplier diversity and the discipline of supplier diversity, working with large corporations looking to do business with smaller and in our case diverse businesses and enter them into their supply and service chains. And so that's a major responsibility we uh we have been doing here in the San Diego region and California region as well since 1999. Um, by way of background, I might personally I um have a background working with I work with two uh Fortune 100 companies, did a lot of work in the sales and marketing area of the of those firms, and then ultimately in organizational development. Um so coming to the council and looking at ways to help develop diverse businesses in terms of preparing them and connecting them with major corporations was a really good fit for my my background. Um I also spent a stint uh uh as a consultant uh working with companies like Bose Corporations, uh Southeast Toyota, um, and many others uh to look at their strategies and figure out how to turn those strategies or how to implement those strategies down through your organization. So all of that experience uh background um led me to a place where I felt like this was a great opportunity to give back and working with other organizations and working with uh small business and diverse businesses in the community.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

That that's really noble. I mean, going from Fortune 100 companies to a nonprofit. So let me ask you, what is your why? Why do you do this? Because you could be making oodles of money in the private sector with your your knowledge and wisdom and and and expertise.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, you know, it's funny you you asked me that because I from time to time there are people who say, listen, I think you you know you you have some some real strengths and you you could do X or you could do Y, and there's opportunities to come to me. Um and a part of that is you know, I've been there, done that. You know, I I I worked for some companies and uh they traveled all over for them. Um and but I think at my core, even as a young man, it was really important to me to be part of the community and help uh folks in the community. Um as a very, very young man, I was a business owner. I had I owned a you know a music store, you know, I owned a clothing store, I managed some bands as a young person. I had a rental business. So I was kind of tied to business, so that was kind of nice for me. But I I I feel like I have always wanted to, I was a helper. I I think in one of those, uh two of those Fortune uh 100 companies, I I served uh as the as an executive in their organizational development, you know, their management training and all of that kind of thing. So for me, I think I have a passion around helping people and finding ways to help them succeed and grow. Uh, and I get a great deal of pleasure from that. And I think it contributes to the community um in an important way. So I think that's that's why I do it. You know, sometimes I ask myself that, but it isn't about the money. It isn't about uh those positions anymore for me. It's really about how can I make a difference. Um, and I just love the relationships and friendships I've built working with these different businesses in the business community.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Call that being a servant leader. And from what I know of you, you walk the walk. Um I I I attended one of your uh graduations for a friend of mine. Uh she was in a leadership development program. Can you touch on on your your programs that help elevate small business owners become leaders in the community?

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yeah, sure, sure. I mean, this is one of the programs I'm really truly proud of. We um myself and and and Dr. Dave Pike. Now, Dave Pike, uh, for a time, for about seven or eight years, was the dean of the School of Business for the University of San Diego. Um, but he had a passion for helping diverse businesses out at Dartmouth, which was a school that he was at previously. So together we said, look, we got to bring a world-class leadership executive program to our region uh for diverse businesses. And so we created a program which I call the High Performance Supplier Series. Uh, it is a five-day program, and we generally do it one day a month. That way gives the business owners a chance in between each segment to begin to apply that, to look at how it applies to their business and to test it out, to try some of the frameworks and models that we give, uh, and then come back and ask some questions about that in terms of helping with implementation. So it's five full days, so it's pretty intense as a program. And we've done this now for about eight years. Um, and last year we did four cohorts, and it's supported by a number of companies like Cox Communication, S DE, Civics Community Partners. Um, so we have a number of folks, Golden State Water, a lot of companies like that like to have their own iteration of this. So we put it on for their suppliers as a way to develop the suppliers. And we we the basis of it really is organizational and operational strategy at the start. And we provide some models for that, and then we apply that to some of the other areas like marketing, sales, and branding. Um, we apply it to cost management, understanding a strategy of cost management and cost reduction, improving profitability, and the idea of executive negotiation, which is important. We tie it to financial strategies, we go to uh managing the human asset and and then tie to wrap it all up in in terms of a package to help those businesses. Uh and then we're available to them as they're as they're going through their their implementation of that. So that's one of the programs we're really proud of, and have that relationship with the University of San Diego kind of you know, world-class you know college. Uh it's uh it's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yeah, I agree. You're doing such great work for a lot of great people. Um let's let's change gears here. And I understand you're you're very uh involved with the um minority certification. Can you talk about the disparities in the industries that are in the supply chain where you find disparities that uh you're actively involved?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah, and I think um it's it's gotten, you know, it's getting better and and better. So we as an organization used to certify on behalf of a large national organization that certified you as a minority business. Uh we when we left that relationship, we expanded to support all diverse categories. So whether it's a woman-owned business, whether it's African-American, Latino, you know, Asian, any any of the minority categories, uh, and services able veterans, underserved veterans, uh, and the LGBTQ plus communities as well. Um, so one of the things that so we don't certify, but we verify that they are certified on behalf of the larger corporations. Now, there are some corporations here that we have as numbers that are doing a phenomenal job. I mean, where their percentages of all of the funds they spend uh for business uh to acquire products and services, they can be as much as 45, you know, 50%. Um, so there's some some real good players out there and they've done a substantial job. Um, I think in some areas uh there's a lot of work to be done. And one example is I'm on a committee with the um San Diego Umic Development Corporation here in San Diego, and they have this anchor institution program that they've been working on to try to get the local companies, the big anchors that are here, that are stationed here, to really focus on uh making an effort to do business with the local diverse business community, you know, both small businesses and diverse businesses in the community. So we've been working on that. It's a little slow going right now. There's a lot of information around what people have, you know, what they do now, what percentage they're spending, and that kind of thing. But in terms of really defining a program, making it happen, that's something that's still a work in progress. There's where I think there, and you know, in this particular case in San Diego, this is a thing that really could be helpful to the you know, to the entire community if in fact we could really get that kicked off, where the anchors said, look, we've got a really great program. And our obviously us as the council, you know, we're we joined in on this through support through S D G and E to be a help to those companies in terms of their supplier diversity initiatives and support them and help them to develop the best ways to do that outreach and then to connect them to our diverse suppliers that we have. Um so I think that there's some challenges still uh as it relates to diverse businesses in the community. Um, and a lot of these larger companies are using folks that come from outside the state and outside the city. Um and this is it, and and and the city itself really, I know they have a good program they're working on, but I think more needs to be done and and we need to take a serious look at how to do this step by step by step, incrementally at a time, but really make real progress in helping the these good, because I have companies that are great companies, they're aspiring to do business with, you know, SoCal Gas and SDG ⁇ E and Cox Communication and Sony. So they're not they're not mom and pops that are saying, oh gosh, give me a low-hanging fruit. I want to, you know, I'm minority, give me a give me a contract. These are really highly capable companies. Um, and you just have to take a look at some and and spend some time with some of these companies, and you'll know you you'll get great value from them as a as a buyer uh or a major organization.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

So good. Um you're just sharing some some knowledge that I think our our business owners really need to know. Um, you know, I I in conversation we had talked about uh the difference in disparity of prime and subcontractors. Can you touch on that?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Um well, I mean, I uh the the prime obviously contractors are generally speaking, have been um they're not small, and generally speaking, they're not diverse. Um in fact, I'll give you an example. I know one project that I'm working on is an accelerator in the um energy space, and we were looking for uh African American, because their spin was really down there, uh, looking for African Americans who worked in this space. In this case, it was the gas pipeline space, right? And search the air area, there are none. Search the west, west half of the United States, there are none. Search the entire country, there are none. Now, there aren't any because it's very hard to break into this and traditionally, you know, the diverse businesses haven't been there. And so one of the things that we've worked on here is to leverage the relationship that the primes have with their major companies doing that business and their need to support those companies' supplier diversity initiatives. We developed an accelerator so that we can now have those African-American and other diverse, there were a couple other categories of diverse businesses now partner up with prime contractors to get to get um opportunities to do subcontract work. Um and and really here's an area that either either these companies as primes have to really get it, understand it, and and participate in it, uh, or it does become, it can become a struggle. I mean, I there's some great primes that we've been working with that that go all out in this area, but there's some others I know sometimes they reach out to us for subcontractors, but I know it's just it's just uh to check the box, you know, and they're not serious. If they were serious, they'd call us up and say, hey, listen, how can how can you help our company make our numbers? They, you know, for for for a membership price that they'll pay as a big prime, it's nothing. It's a drop in the bucket. They spend more than that when they take a client out for dinner and and drinks. But um the question is, you know, those that are serious versus those that are just trying to get around the system one way or another, you know. And it's tough. It's you know, it's tough because you know, as a subcontractor, you're at the mercy of a of a prime, and they sometimes pay you on the same terms that they get paid. And that's very difficult for a smaller business. They need to be at more favorable terms. And some of the major companies actually provide for that. Um, and and we try to incorporate that into our accelerator program that we're working on for um for the gas company.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So that's that's great news. Now, um let's talk about the economic improvement zones uh here in San Diego County and at large. Um can you can you share with our audience what those are and uh how they impact our community?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

So um our our program is we have this economic empowerment service model. And the genesis of it really is that we have helped companies get connected, diverse companies get connected with big partners and and get contracts and all, and and grow their companies. And so when you look at that, that was that was really great. That's a that's an important part of what we do in supplier diversity. But if we're just building wealth for the ownership of these companies, and that does not create opportunity and growth and uh education and other things for the community at large, then we're really not we're really not closing the loop on the real purpose of supplier diversity. So our model of economic empowerment is one that is inclusive of um all elements, the diverse businesses, the major corporations who support and buy from them, but then also that group of diverse businesses who are not ready or even don't have an interest in necessarily that's not their objective to learn to do business with Sony or some large organization such as that. Um and then how does that impact in the greater community in terms of helping to create jobs? And how does that help in terms of educating people about entrepreneurship to give them that opportunity to become an entrepreneur for financial stability long term? So our model really looks at yes, we start on the demand side with the major corporations that are looking to do business with these diverse businesses. We try to build that relationship, try to identify what they need, bring to the table suppliers that fit that. We have a couple of programs that we do where we actually do matching, you know, one-on-ones for specific suppliers to corporate buyers internally at those companies, our categoric sourcing exchanges, we call them. And that's one portion of the model. So that's the demand side. In the middle is that whole group of diverse businesses that we then work with those groups to mobilize them to sort of mentor with each other, help grow, do subcontract work between each other where they can and buy from each other. So that also creates that takes that economic fuel from the major uh contracts you have and drives it down into the diverse business community. Now we don't stop there. A third phase of our program is then we ask those diverse businesses to help us in the community. So, for example, we partner with San Diego Youth Services, we partner with and have a contract with the National Conflict Resolution Center for the JDI program. It's a juvenile diversion initiative. So someone gets into trouble, a young person makes a mistake, instead of getting into the juvenile system, they can divert and go through a program. If they finish that program and complete it, you know, nose is clean, you know, they they have a new lease on life, and that that whole thing is is diverted. Um, and so we we teach the whole workforce development and the young entrepreneur academy. So we teach them about being an entrepreneur. So it's a way for us to let the greater diverse business community help us give back to the community uh as you know at large. Uh so I think that that's an important um part of that program we have. Now those zones, just to be, you know, to quickly give it to you, those zones are zones that are in um uh several parts of the the the the uh hold on a second, several parts of the uh city for us, but they're also we have a zone in Las Vegas as well in Clarks County. So in our area, El Cajone, National City, and Imperial Beach, uh Escondido, San Marcos is together, Lemon Grove and Southeast San Diego, Vista and Oceanside. So if I were to ask you where are some of the high poverty areas, all of those you would mention, you'd know them. But we actually took some census data and looked at the census data and it corroborated what we thought were the highest poverty market. So those are the markets that we look to mobilize diverse businesses within and find ways to connect to the local community service organizations and provide resources to them like workforce development and entrepreneurial training and other kinds of support that we can provide. Um we just think this is a really you know a full full circle kind of thing that we can do, create more opportunities for the businesses and then give back to the community some more.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

I agree. You're you're supporting a whole business ecosystem within the community. Um so with that said, you know, I've been to your office. It's it's an amazing spot. Can you can you share with the audience you know who's welcome there? What are your your perfect candidates and and what can they how can they be served at your office if they get registered with you?

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Okay, great. Uh so yeah, that's an important point. So each each diverse business needs to register with us to to uh be part of our group. That helps us get all of their data into our database. And so when we're doing sourcing or searches or discussions with the corporate opportunities, that we have that information in. If they're not in that database, it's harder to do that, you know, that work. But as a diverse business, um there's a number of different services that we offer. Some have to do directly with the space and some don't. So, for example, the direct sourcing services that we that we provide. Um we we can put together when we get a request from some of our corporate members, then we can actually source people into that. We also provide financial services. We've got a program which is um capital funding resources, which is our what we call our lender circle. And that lender circle, when people are looking for funds, sometimes they don't have a hard time getting those funds uh at a bank, you know, or someplace like that. Uh so we have provided with some partners, civic community partners, mission-driven finance, uh, Genesis Network. These are organizations that are really geared toward their objective is to try to help small and diverse businesses get the funding they need in more flexible and non and non-traditional methodologies. Um, and so that's a service. We have a legal support service at our facility. Um people have need for legal services, we have someone who can make a referral to a lot of the legal resources that we have within the within the organization. Um, the other thing in the office, more related to the office, is that suppliers can book space to have meetings there. So they can have client meetings, uh, you know, sales meetings, things of that sort that they would like to have at our facility. They can have an office location there, an actual physical office location there with all services, or they can have a virtual office location there with services. Um, and so we just thought it was a good place to have as central in San Diego County and a great place to build sort of collaboration for the diverse businesses uh in the community. Um of course with COVID, there was much less of that, but we're starting to see some of that, some of that come back at this point now.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Sure. I I see your office very instrumental in the time new trend of working from home remotely.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

But sometimes you have to have a meeting with someone, and a Starbucks is just not conducive, and bringing them to your home office sometimes is inappropriate. So you know, I've seen your your space there. You've got small office spaces that, you know, it has two desks and a chair, or a desk and two chairs, and then you have meeting space, you have a boardroom, and and then you have residents that are there on a monthly basis. Um you're you're providing great. Service to our business communities. What can what can we look forward to up and coming in 2024? Do you have any workshops? Do you have any new uh new programs? What can you shed the light on what what to expect in the looking in the crystal ball?

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Well, I think you're gonna see expansion of our economic empowerment zone activity. You know, uh during COVID, some of that thing slowed down. So you're really gonna see in 2024 an expansion of that, and we're gonna really be moving on that. And I think that'll be important because if you're located or live in one of those areas or in and around that proximity to those areas, you'd want to be involved in a lot of the meetings that we'll have locally in each of those zones uh to include other community organizations, but you'll be meeting with the other business owners who either live or have their businesses housed in that area. So that's one of the things we're gonna be stepping up in 2024. We did a lot of that prior to the COVID time, so we're gonna do some more. Um, so I think that'll be an important thing uh for folks to look at. We're gonna have a series of uh there's two workshops that we're gonna run multiple times. One is our financial strategies workshop, which will focus on helping people get sort of the CFO view of what it what's needed in running that company. How do you find certain financial resources? Uh, how do you manage that better? How do you prepare yourself better? Uh, all of that's designed to understand where companies are, what their objectives are, and it will be part of our financial services or our lender circle. So people who come there and if they are looking for financing, we can get them into the pitch for our lender circle. And I have to say that we we've we've worked hard on a number of folks who came and pitched, and we found financing when they could not find financing outside, and so they have the opportunity to continue to support their business andor grow their business. So that's a workshop we'll be repeating. And the other area is on HR um strategies. Um, because we find a lot of the companies, you know, they have people who do this work, but they're they're not like when I work for Fortune, you know, 100 companies. I mean, you had a big department on the HR, you had a big training development partner, you had all these resources. You know, today today smaller businesses don't have that. So we think getting it right in HR, the compliance elements of it, answering questions around that, preparing yourself better is an important piece that's very often missing. They know their business, they know their competition, they know how to run the company. But that's one of those problems, in addition to the financial uh piece. So we're gonna run two of those workshops one every quarter, um, just so that we can get a smaller group of people in at a time so we can really talk about the things that are important to each company. Because that's what I really believe in is really we can do these big meetings and have a hundred people in a room and have a bunch of people on a panel. That's great, good information. But I want to have it so we can really kind of answer questions, talk about the challenges that each of these companies have, more of a consultative role. So you'll see those come out um in the next year as well. But at the end of this year, we have we have on December 14th, we we do have our year-end meeting. So that's something people if you mark their calendar for as three o'clock in the afternoon, and they'll get a great update on all the things that we're gonna be doing, all the things we have accomplished going forward. Um, and so that'll be at our our facility uh at in um Miramesa on the 14th of December.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Just dropping the nuggets of wisdom. I love it. Compliance is huge. A lot of these uh companies are so focused on their craft that they forget about the back office. And it's it's be it it's it'll be less costly have they invest at least in a HR consultant to look over their shoulder than to be fined and and have to pay fees.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

That's correct.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

So that's correct.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Big companies can afford to do that. Smaller companies think it can be a real hardship if you if you end up in one of those situations.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Sure. Mr. Ron Garnett, president and CEO at the Council for Supplier Diversity, thank you so much for joining us on our show, Talk Story Media Business Edition. Any last words of encouragement or or or knowledge that you think a small business owner needs to know? Close up.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

I think what I would say is um community. Uh I think uh small businesses um they they they want to go after the business and grow the business. And one of the ways to help that help build that is to build community with other business owners. And this is one of the things that we're trying to promote. Um, and you can go to a lot of events, but you should be selective about what what events you go to and which ones bring value and which ones don't. And this is an area we would really like to help companies with so that if we can build community with them uh and and build connections with other diverse businesses, I think that would be helpful.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Mr. Ron Garnett, again, thank you so much for joining us today. Uh it's been a pleasure. I welcome you back to the show anytime, and uh we uh look forward to having you again. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Have a great day.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

All right.