CYNTHIA COOPER

Cynthia Cooper owns Supplier Diversity Research (SDR). Her career has focused on small business development and inclusion helping clients examine, develop and or create programs and public policies that empower small businesses.  

Cooper has served in and or held contracts in the private and public sectors.

As a business owner, she executed multi-year contracts with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Minority Business Development Agency; provided workforce diversity training at Lockheed Martin facilitating focus groups with cross-functional, multi-level teams; conducted a study of small businesses in the Federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program for the Connecticut Department of Transportation; and led focus groups in Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles as part of a national study of women business owners and corporate America. 

Ms. Cooper was part of the Disparity study teams for both the city of Columbus disparity study and the Ohio Department of Transportation’s study. As a subcontractor on both studies, Supplier Diversity Research conducted anecdotal interviews with majority, small, minority and women business owners and collected subcontractor spend data from city departments.  

Cooper was a part of the team that examined the feasibility of instituting a small business program on behalf of the Columbus Equal Business Opportunity Commission. Among other tasks, Cooper facilitated focus groups composed of personnel from cabinet level departments.

Cooper has also been employed by government. Appointed by the Governor of the state of Washington, she directed the state’s Office of Minority & Women Business Enterprises (OMWBE) and prior to that she worked for the Connecticut Department of Transportation where she was the director of Contract Compliance, (the external civil rights department). In both roles she served as the key advocate and change agent for the development of small, women owned, and minority owned businesses. 

Ms. Cooper’s work in the private sector includes a leadership role at Wendy’s International, where she fostered relationships between major suppliers to Wendy’s and small businesses.

Ms. Cooper’s non-profit experience includes directorship of a Boston based regional Purchasing Council that fostered partnerships between Fortune 500 corporations and small businesses. 

Based in Columbus, Ohio, Supplier Diversity Research is certified by the City of Columbus, Office of Diversity and Inclusion as a minority business.

Ms. Cooper received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Connecticut. She has over 30 years’ experience in management

REGINALD NUNNALLY

Governor Deval Patrick appointed Mr. Reginald A. Nunnally as the Executive Director of the Supplier Diversity Office for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2009 and was responsible for the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Technical Assistance Program. A Technical Assistance Program that collaborated with the private sector, government sector and the supply chain to link certified Minority and Women firms to economic opportunity.  Reginald Nunnally (more commonly known as Reggie) has been involved in economic development for the past 30 years, initially as the Executive Director of the Grove Hall Neighborhood Development Corporation that spearheaded the redevelopment efforts on Blue Hill Ave in Boston.

Mr. Nunnally was appointed by Mayor Thomas M. Menino in 1996 as the first Executive Director for Boston’s Enhanced Enterprise Community for the City of Boston, responsible for processing over $44 million of federal funds for Empowerment Zone economic development projects.  His career highlights include facilitating the process for financing the Mecca Mall in Grove Hall, the South End Health Center, Merengue Restaurant (destination point for Dominican professional baseball players), the Best Western Round House Hotel Suites and the Hampton Inn Hotel, (the first African American owned hotel in Boston and the first hotels to be built in Roxbury since the turn of the 20th century.) 

Beginning in 2000 he was assigned to work with the Black Ministerial Alliance and successfully worked with numerous churches in the Boston area assisting ministers in a variety of projects from the development of Tot Lots for Day Care Centers, parking facilities for parishioners, financial counseling, to large economic and housing development projects, as well as the naming of a school after a prominent minister in the Black community.

Mr. Nunnally was also the creator of Boston Connects Inc. micro loan program geared for existing small neighborhood businesses and individuals aspiring to start or expand a business within Boston’s Empowerment Zone neighborhoods.

Mr. Nunnally has collaborated with the Skanska,Turner School of Construction, Gilbane Construction training program for MBE’WBE’s and Suffolk Construction Sub-contractors Development Series Program and the East West Bank, (the largest Asian Bank in America and the third largest bank in China), and US Department of Transportation for the development of a USDOT/SDO Short Term Lending Program geared towards Disadvantaged Businesses Enterprises doing business with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. In addition he is the impetus for the development of the New England Summit a collaboration of all of the New England States to address issues of national concern on a regional basis.

He is a past recipient of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Minority Small Business Advocate of the year award for both Massachusetts as well as all of New England, the City of Boston’s Henry L Shattuck Award, NAACP Pinnacle Award for Minority Business Advocacy, Massachusetts Minority Contractors Associations Advocate of the year award, American Minority Business Enterprise Government Advocate of the Year Award, Mattapan Life Time Achievement Award and ABCD’s Outstanding Volunteer Award at its 30th Annual Dinner.

Mr. Nunnally has provided business consulting services to a number of businesses in the New England area.  The list of clients include; BBS Research and Consulting firm in Denver Colorado, Next Street Financial (Roxbury, Mass), Town of Brookline, Madison Park Community Development Corporation (Roxbury, Mass), Fisher Demolition (Worcester Mass), Centerplan Construction (Hartford Conn.) Rhode Island Black Business Association (Providence RI) Advoqt LLC ( Brighton Mass) Design Construction and Consulting Services (Boston, Mass). Vinagro Construction (Johnston RI) and provided consulting services to the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA) and is currently providing consulting services to Drew Companies on a Seaport Real Estate Development.

In May of 2018 Mr. Nunnally was elected as the first President of the Blue Hills Branch of the NAACP.  The Branch is inclusive of the towns of Milton, Canton, Sharon, Randolph and Stoughton.

Mr. Nunnally sits on a number of Boards and Advisory Committees, including:

• The Stoughton Redevelopment Authority, treasurer

• The Boston Redevelopment Authority’s  Boston Local Development Corporation loan program,

• Former New England Area Conference NAACP Economic Development Committee Chairperson

• Massachusetts Gaming Commission Former Vendor Advisory Board

• Department of Transportation Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Former Advisory Board

• Former President of the Blue Hills NAACP Branch

He has attended Providence College and Boston University and has received training at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Northeastern University’s Otto Snowden Fellowship program. He is married to Kathlean Nunnally and has two adult children and a granddaughter.

ANDRE M. PORTER

Appointed by Governor Duval Patrick in 2008 to be the Executive Director of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (OSBE). As Executive Director, he was responsible for planning, developing, managing, coordinating and monitoring the state's overall small and micro business development efforts. He was also responsible for developing policies and initiatives to improve small business competitiveness and for monitoring legislative and administrative policy changes for potential impact to small businesses. 

Prior to working for the Commonwealth, he spent eight years as the Deputy Director of the City of Boston’s Office of Business Development. In this position, he was responsible for the Boston Main Streets Program which funds 19 commercial districts across the City; small business lending; commercial real estate and business development finance; technical assistance for entrepreneurs and small business owners; and numerous resources and services that encouraged neighborhood and business development across the City. 

Some of the achievements of the Office of Business Development under his leadership include the financing of over 53 commercial real estate projects totaling more than $400 million in development costs; funded and provided design assistance to over 300 façade improvement projects totaling more than $25 million in construction costs; assisted over 80 restaurant projects through the Neighborhood Restaurant Initiative, resulting in more than 500 new jobs; developed and launched the Boston Hotel Loan Fund which brought in more than $6.5 million in fee income; developed and launched the Community Change Card program, a technology-based customer loyalty card for small neighborhood retail businesses across the City.

Prior to working for the City of Boston, Mr. Porter spent fourteen years in the banking industry where he was a commercial real estate lender, asset manager, and workout specialist for several Boston-based banks. He received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Education degrees from Tufts University.