Ed Bryant, who succeeded James Webb as president and CEO of the St. Louis Minority Business Council on July 1, said he was hired to build bridges and make connections.
“They were trying to find someone to play bridge builder, connector, which is one of my strengths,” Bryant said. “I have the sense not only that people want to do the right thing ethically, but they also want their businesses to be strong.”
The connections he will be trying to make, for the most part, are between majority and minority businesses, with the ethically “right” thing for majority companies (that also will strengthen their businesses) being to include minority-owned businesses more prominently in their procurement and partnerships.
Bryant thinks what’s missing to forge more of these connections is awareness of the marketplace and who is actually in it.
“At the Business Opportunity Fair, I had the opportunity to meet many Minority Business Council members, to talk about their businesses and better understand what they do and the value they might bring to larger companies,” Bryant said.
“And I was really struck by how much the business community doesn’t understand what some minority businesses do. I can bring tremendous value by communicating more effectively and more intentionally that ‘these are the players in a variety of different spaces’ and ‘here are their products and services.’”
Bryant’s communication skills as a public relations professional were one major reason he was chosen for the position after the board read 120 resumes and conducted 20 candidate interviews, said Dennis Weisenborn, vice president of Ameren and chairman of the St. Louis Minority Business Council Board of Directors.
“We understand the importance of public relations and strong communication, and Ed is experienced in communications,” Weisenborn said. “We feel he will be a great leader to drive economic inclusion as a business model to move this region forward.”
Most recently, Bryant was vice president of the Economic Development Collaborative at the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership. Prior to that, Bryant led public affairs and created an award-winning stakeholder engagement program for Pfizer’s Chesterfield Research and Development Facility. He also has served as director of Community Engagement and Communications for the Regional Health Commission.
From these positions, Bryant brings his own connections to the council.
“The Minority Business Council will benefit greatly from Ed’s key relationships with key leaders in our community, like Joe Reagan at the St. Louis Regional Chamber, Tom Irwin of Civic Progress, Kathy Osborne of the Regional Business Council, Mayor Slay and County Executive Dooley,” Weisenborn said.
Bryant deepened these connections while working at the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership. His work on the partnership’s strategic plan also gave Bryant inside into minority inclusion issues.
“In the stakeholder process, I kept hearing inclusion come up over and over again,” Bryant said. “Several stakeholders identified inclusion not only as something the region needs to deal with, but something that can be a regional asset to bring value to the community and help expand and grow our economy.”
Now Bryant will pursue that objective, but with the council rather than the partnership.
“The Minority Business Council is well-positioned to promote and support the growth of our economy and make sure we are deploying and utilizing and leveraging all of our assets,” Bryant said.
Bryant also sees opportunity in growing minority businesses within the region’s budding entrepreneurial culture that is being promoted by Accelerate St. Louis, Arch Grants and several other initiatives.
“St. Louis is so uniquely positioned in that space, with the cost of living and educational assets. There is more opportunity for growth in St. Louis than any other city our size,” Bryant said.
“Looking at our entrepreneurial ecosystem, having played in that space for the last couple of years, there are not very many minority businesses or African Americans playing in that space – not because they don’t exist, but they probably aren’t aware. There are a lot of opportunities for us to make introductions.”
In the short term, the council’s board has identified some goals for Bryant: to grow membership in the council; to drive up certification of minority businesses; to mentor and develop minority businesses; to better market the council’s brand; and to build new partnerships for the council.
“I want to make sure we help minority companies to grow and find ways to scale themselves and partner and align themselves with other businesses,” Bryant said.
“The St. Louis business climate is changing. We have talked a lot about being global and competing regionally, but I think we are finally coming into the realization that this is true and an understanding of what that means. We are all kind of realizing that the business climate is different and we have to do things differently.”
In part, it’s a matter of businesses staying as diverse as their customer base.
“Businesses have to find ways to be effectively connected to their customers, and if your customer pool or universe looks diverse, then how diverse are your supply chains or the people in your organization?” Bryant said. “Are you effectively prepared to navigate what the economy looks like tomorrow, not today? St. Louis is becoming more diverse, so we need to find a way to connect our large corporations to the economy of tomorrow.”
“We know doing business with diverse suppliers as a majority employer is the right thing to do,” Weisenborn said, “but we also understand it’s an economic imperative for the region.”
Bryant said a strengthened minority business community also will help St. Louis recruit and retain more minority talent.
“Talent follows opportunity,” Bryant said. “If we can find ways to more effectively deploy what we have here, we will also draw new talent and become more competitive and we won’t find ourselves 10 years from now asking the same questions about how to keep talent here. It’s not a hard case to make that we should keep talent here – once you realize it is here.”
It’s now Bryant’s task to take these high-minded, big-picture ideas and connect them to minority business owners struggling to survive and grow.
“There are a lot of small minority companies and business owners with their heads down trying to run their businesses, and they don’t have the advocates to work on their behalf and see opportunities for growth,” Bryant said.
“That’s where the partnership gap is. It’s not that these companies are not able to do the job, it’s just they’re so busy running their companies and making them grow from a management standpoint that they are not able to see opportunities at times. That’s where we really have an opportunity to help them and bring them things they may not be able to consider with their head down trying to make things work.”
