Tide Changer: Veronica Cook-Euell
Veronica Cook-Euell has always been passionate about inclusivity.
She has worked to bolster minority- and women-owned businesses as the director for the Partnership for the Minority Business Accelerator at the Akron Urban League between 2008 and 2011 and as a supplier diversity director at Kent State University from 2011 to 2020. In addition, she had a volunteer radio show on WCRS, in which she read minority news to people with low vision.
She has been offering professional consulting services since 2003 through her business, the Euell Consulting Group. Through that, her consulting experience includes presentations on body size diversity and compassionate medical care at hospital systems like Summa Health. In 2020, she began Euell Construction & Consulting Group, a strategic supplier diversity firm with many clients in construction and private industries. It aims to help companies diversify their spending to support more minority- and women-owned companies while also creating relationships with them. It also performs workforce and enterprise reporting and monitoring.
“I have always had the makings of an advocate,” says Cook-Euell, who was invited by the U.S. Consulate in Brazil to speak on supplier diversity and is Kent State’s 2022 Spirit of Women in Business award winner.
She emphasizes that diversifying spending can benefit everyone. Minority- and women-owned businesses get a seat at the table, majority companies can experience increased innovation with a diverse team and her firm can expand its reach. “It’s actually a win-win-win,” she says.
Many minority- and women-owned companies face barriers that some majority companies don’t.
“Studies have shown that there’s a disparity between the amount of contracts that were awarded to a minority versus the amount that were awarded to majority-owned companies,” she says.
This issue is personal to Cook-Euell. After starting a global faith-based gift business in 2003, she was on the brink of landing an opportunity with a major chain. As a new businessperson, she lost the deal because she didn’t have the resources to learn how to negotiate it. At the time, there were very few organizations that helped minority-owned businesses.
“I didn’t have anyone showing me, helping me,” she says. “A lot of times, minority-owned companies … learn through trial and error.”
That experience drives Cook-Euell to connect with and help other minority-owned businesses, she says. In her role at Kent State, she worked with the Office of the University Architect on the $1.2 billion gateway master plan to raise the amount of Ohio’s Encouraging Diversity, Growth and Equity-certified construction contracts from 5 percent to 9 percent.
That could bring an additional $40 million to Edge-certified contractors, while exemplifying her mindset: “Don’t look at your inclusion goals as the ceiling. Look at them as the floor.”
One of her clients, NRP Group, which focuses on creating affordable housing to help the community, proudly exemplifies that approach. It has been working with Cook-Euell for a year, creating a supplier diversity strategy.
“We think this program further helps the community by lifting up the people who are working in it and providing them opportunities,” says Dan Brenner, the senior vice president at NRP.
This mindset is becoming more common, Cook-Euell says. She recently attended a Cleveland Clinic networking event where three major area construction firms spoke about wanting to go beyond requirements. That really struck her.
“I was a little moved about the inclusiveness they were looking to bring because I can see that the tide is changing,” Cook-Euell says. “We’re making this just the way that we do business now.”