supplier-diversity
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Metasys and the art of making 20,000 suppliers behave
A workforce specialist grew into a digital consulting business by tackling the work between departments. Its most revealing case starts with a retailer, thousands of suppliers, and a very busy purchasing desk.
VIVA USA makes a business of the missing pieces
A recruiter, a software builder and a supplier-data specialist share one company. VIVA USA’s most revealing product is the one that still needs someone to pick up the phone.
The Hard Hat Is the Easy Part
RBCA discovered that a credential alone does not make a career. Its Dallas model bundles training, equipment, case management and contractor relationships into one five-week bridge to the job site.
The Public Relations Firm That Learned to Read the Fine Print
HillDay found a valuable place between the public meeting and the project ledger - translating infrastructure for communities, then documenting whether the promises survived the paperwork.
The $400 Million Conversation
Garth Solutions found a business in the awkward space between a billion-dollar plan and the people expected to live with it. Its real product is not a brochure or a meeting - it is participation that survives contact with reality.
The People Who Count Who Gets to Build the City
Prism Technical found a peculiar job hiding inside every civic megaproject: turning the promise of inclusion into names, hours, contracts and receipts.
The People Between the Bulldozer and the Neighborhood
K Strategies built a business around the awkward space where big civic projects meet actual human beings. The work looks like PR from a distance; up close, it is translation, trust and a very detailed meeting plan.
MRS Unlimited Built the Multicultural Marketing Brief Before It Was Fashionable
For 25 years, Larry Fairley’s North Carolina agency has translated cultural fluency into practical work - from scholarship programs and HBCU tours to a BMW conference app that reached 75% adoption.
The Oakland Firm That Makes a Public Promise Survive the Job Site
Lowe Consulting Group works in the narrow, consequential gap between a public project’s promises and the paperwork, people and persistence required to keep them.
Adarsh Katyal Built VARITE for the Work Between the Work
For 25 years, the VARITE founder has worked in the unglamorous machinery of enterprise talent - matching people, programs and trust across borders. His record offers a useful lesson: durable companies are often built where coordination matters more than applause.
Anju Abel Built a Career on the Part of Staffing Spreadsheets Miss
The LanceSoft CEO arrived in New York with optimism, built her way through the machinery of contingent work, and now argues that the industry’s most useful technology is still a human connection.
Pegbo
Pegbo is a Menlo Park construction-technology startup that gives preconstruction teams AI coworkers to source, engage, and vet trade partners. Its platform searches a database of more than one million verified subcontractors and suppliers - filterable by scope, location, NAICS code, union status, and certifications like MBE, DBE, and WBE - then automates outreach, bid-coverage tracking, document collection, and compliance so general contractors and project owners can hit supplier-diversity goals faster and with less busywork.
Amar Amte
Amar Amte is the founder and CEO of Pegbo, a Menlo Park construction-tech company that helps general contractors and public agencies find, vet, and track small, local, and diverse trade partners. After roughly a decade at Google and five years at Yahoo in engineering and program-management roles, he left big tech in 2023 to attack one of construction's oldest headaches: the 'spray and pray' bid invitation. Pegbo runs a searchable directory of more than a million verified trade partners and automates outreach, bid coverage, and Good Faith Effort compliance reporting. The company raised $1.4 million in a 2024 pre-seed round led by Nirman Ventures and is a pre-qualified supplier to contractors including Skanska, Webcor, Swinerton, and Hathaway Dinwiddie.