Meet The CEO Empowering Minority-Owned Businesses To Scale

0:00Jabari Young: It's a story of math, reality, a story of the American dream, not partisan, not political, just a story of what good capitalism looks like in the nation. Those are the words of one CEO who's trying to change the story around the very, very important Business Development Council. And in a minute, we'll be talking all things business development with Mr. Don Cravins, you're in the Enterprise Zone at the NASDAQ.

0:32Hello, everyone.

0:33Jabari Young: It's Jabari Young, senior writer at Forbes and Enterprise Zone at the NASDAQ market site. And I'm joined by Mr. Don Cravens. He is the CEO, president and CEO of the National Minority Supplier Development Council. And this is a nonprofit that was established back in 1972 under Richard Nixon. And right now he is definitely moving the needle and trying to bridge the gap between small, medium and large businesses with the huge corporations. especially in the supply chain world and also a consultant for our Forrest BOK 25 Businesses to Watch list. Mr.

1:06Don Cravins Jr.: Cravens, I appreciate the time. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here, Jabbar. Thanks for having me. Thanks for all the work you do, brother. Bringing some attention to these very important issues. Thank you so much. Listen, I forgot to say you're a Forrest BOK 50.

1:17Jabari Young: That's right, man. Back in 2024. That was the first time I discovered you, right? We went out and we did public nominations. He said, you got to include a guy named Don Cravens. And I looked you up and I said, man, this dude is behind the scenes. is just making it work. You remind me like of a Clarence Avon a little bit.

1:32Don Cravins Jr.: Well, well, thank you, brother. It was an honor to be part of that prestigious group of brothers and sisters. And I'm just trying to do the work behind the scenes. We spent a lot of time in our community talking about social justice and civil rights and voting rights and criminal justice. And all of those issues are important. I've tried to keep my lane, which is really focused on economics, on the silver, silver rights, as I like to say. And so you don't get all the prime time doing that work sometimes, but it's still very important work. Yeah, you'd be behind the scenes bored like,

2:01Jabari Young: man, why is nobody paying attention to these things? But listen, before we talk business, and again, we appreciate the time that the council has showed us, supplied us with some phenomenal names for our 25 businesses to watch list. Some of those names I knew, some of the ones I didn't know, but it was so good to see so many businesses, right? People of color that are behind the scenes running a lot of supply chain businesses, right? These are huge businesses and a part of our American economy. But before we talk about business and all that, how's the family? How's everybody doing?

2:29Don Cravins Jr.: The family's doing well, man. I've got two older kids, and then the wife and I took a break, and we've got a much younger kid, and that much younger 15-year-old is keeping us on our tippy toes. I love it. Yeah. Are you done? Oh, yes, sir. No more kids. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to grandparenting at some point. Not too soon, but at some point. But, no, we've been very fortunate, very blessed in our family. Everybody's healthy and doing well.

2:53Jabari Young: Yeah, love it. I have a 13-year-old, so you have to teach me some tips behind the scenes about how to manage a 13-year-old girl coming up. I'm scared to death.

3:02Don Cravins Jr.: I'll do the best I can. I'll tell you, brother, it's unwritten. The rules are very much unwritten. But love my children. And I will tell you, raising kids in the early 2000s, in the 2000 teens, my two older kids, much different than it is today raising a kid in 2026. Technology is different. And the things that they get to see, hear, and listen, educates them, definitely speeds them along. but it's hard to slow things down when sometimes you just want them to be children and enjoy the basic things in life. Yeah. I have to take the phone away and then I get the deaf stare. Yes. You're the bad guy.

3:36Don Cravins Jr.: You're the bad guy. Yes. Yeah.

3:38Jabari Young: You follow the stock market at all?

3:39Don Cravins Jr.: Very little, man. I've got a little money here and there and obviously 401ks and those things. But yeah, I've been paying attention. Yeah. What type of investor is Don Craven? Is it aggressive? No, I'm a pretty conservative investor at this point. Yeah. Why conservative? I don't know. I I think growing up in the deep South, Jabari and not having a lot growing up, seeing grandparents who really didn't have a lot. I had a grandmother, Creole woman, Grandma Arsenault, Agnes Arsenault, kept money in the house because she just couldn't trust that if she put her money in the banks, that it would always be there for her.

4:11Don Cravins Jr.: And maybe some of that has continued to rub off on. And although the conservatism is not something, obviously, I advise your listeners and your viewers, I think it's just part of the culture. You have people in the South who are still waiting for that day that maybe this could all go away or that something could be taken from them that they'd work very, very hard. And fortunately and unfortunately, some of that stuff still lives in Don Cravens Jr. Yeah.

4:36Jabari Young: Yeah. Well, I mean, listen, there's nothing wrong with keeping a little bit of money that you can have access to. But you're right. You know, it's so funny. You know, when I still drive through neighborhoods I grew up in right down in North Philadelphia, you still see check, you know, cash places. It's like, wow, man, we're still here in 2026 and people still don't trust banks enough where they're taking their money and paying somebody else to go cash the check. And so the fact that those business exist means that it's a mindset thing. It's a mindset. It is. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. You look into 2026.

5:04Jabari Young: Right. A lot has happened. You know, here we are in the fall. Midterms are coming up, but you still have that music that motivates us. Right. That gets us through what's been Don Craven's soundtrack to 2026. Like what's keeping you motivated? We all need some motivation. We do. We do.

5:20Don Cravins Jr.: Look, I've had a little Michael Jackson in my head after the film came out. I'm always thinking about tomorrow. But what has been keeping me up right now, because I think black folks need confidence. Black men need confidence. T.I. has been really keeping me up. T.I., wow. Absolutely, man. We have to be Mr. and Ms. Hems right now. Yeah, we absolutely have to be people who believe in ourselves, who are going to get through some tough spots, some rough spots. we have gotten through tougher spots in our history. And so for me this year, it's been about resiliency. And so I've got the resiliency soundtrack playing in my head.

5:54Don Cravins Jr.: I'm from Southwest Louisiana. We listen to Zodico music, which is our French Creole music accordion. But we've got some great young entertainers. And a lot of their music is about resilience and about that old school. We stick together. Yeah, you're from Louisiana.

6:09Jabari Young: I thought you was going to go Master P.

6:11Don Cravins Jr.: And they're on tour right now.

6:12Jabari Young: I understood. I understood. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.

6:14Don Cravins Jr.: I still know my No Limits songs and all those things right now, but that's on my 2026 soundtrack.

6:18Jabari Young: You can't go wrong with TI either. No, no, no. You can't go wrong with that at all. You walk into a third grade class, Mr. Cravens, and these group of third graders, obviously, a lot of questions amongst young people. But they say, well, what is it that you do, Mr. Cravens? How do you explain your role at what you're doing at the Development Council to a group of third graders?

6:36Don Cravins Jr.: Great question. The way I explain it best is our job is to help small businesses connect with big business. to form contracts that help both businesses. And so when a small business gets a big contract with a bigger business, that small business wins, right? The small business has that contract to grow, to scale, to hire employees. And so if I was talking to third graders, I would explain to them that when their parents who own businesses get a big contract, either with the government or with a bigger business, it allows their parents to do more for them, to do more for their employees and to do more for the community, including the school we're in.

7:10Don Cravins Jr.: That's right. What I explained to third graders who may have a parent who work at a big company, I explained to them that when their parents do business with a smaller business, they win, too. Whenever we can work together in a community, whenever we can buy our goods and our services locally, everybody wins. And so what I try to share with them, Jabari, is that they have a place in this economy. What keeps me up at night is not China or Russia or what we perceive to be our adversaries across the world. What keeps me up at night is the third grader that you just asked about who does not see herself in America, the American economy.

7:47Don Cravins Jr.: Those are the people, those young people, if they lose hope, if they lose faith, if they lose belief that they can make it in America as an entrepreneur, as an owner, as someone who who can predate, who can determine their own fate. That is, I think, our greatest risk as a nation. And that's why I think even Richard Nixon and the Nixon administration understood that 1972. Now, you know, we're living in a heck of a day when Richard Nixon is the North Star as it relates to anything. But Nixon and our civil rights leaders got that in 1972. The civil rights movement was coming to an end. Black folks weren't just protesting civil rights.

8:24Don Cravins Jr.: They were also protesting economic rights as well. Richard Nixon, as he's developing the Minority Business Development Agency at that time, and then NMSDC, this or my organization came out of MBDA. He understood if you want to get people out of the streets yelling, protesting, you got to give them something to fight for. You have to invest them in capitalism. You have to find a place for them to own businesses. That is where this thought, this movement came from. That's what I want to see third graders today still believe in. Yeah.

8:55Jabari Young: Well, let's stay there. Right. I mean, again, you can update me on a development council as we sit here today. Again, thank you so much for the consultancy help with the Foresville K-25 list. But, you know, one stat and some stats that you're proud of with the Development Council is the out of the 16 ,000 suppliers. And that's the number of members that you guys have generated nearly 600 billion in economic output, supporting more than 2.1 million jobs, 168 billion in wages. And we started off the top of the show saying how this is just a good story for America. Right. I know right now the Development Council is getting wrapped up in a lot of the DEI rhetoric.

9:34Jabari Young: Right. And it's getting pulled into that. You know, in reporting for this list, I'm realizing a lot of black businesses are getting pulled in unfairly. They have nothing to do with the EI. They definitely support diversity, but they're getting pulled in unfairly. Contracts are being threatened. You know, the very survival rate of these businesses are being threatened because of the pushback. And again, your organization is one of the educators, the trainers, the relationship builders to help small and midsize businesses kind of, you know, get through that rough patch. to get on the other side where they're profitable and have sustaining power.

10:08Jabari Young: Update us, you know, what's going on with the council and how's it?

10:12Don Cravins Jr.: You said it great, Jabari. I mean, you said it smartly, which is we have been caught up in this anti-DENI rhetoric. And of course, we believe in diversity, equity and inclusion at MSDC. And we do and I do as well. But the term supplier diversity did not come out of DENI. Supplier diversity has been a term that has been around for decades. And when it was coined, it was coined to really mean two things. It was it was coined so that larger businesses would diversify their supply chains racially and ethnically, but also small, big, mid midsize. Having supply chains that would become more resilient because instead of relying on just one supplier to sell you something or to provide a service, if you've got several suppliers that can do that, if someone goes out of business, there's a disruption, there's a pandemic.

10:59Don Cravins Jr.: if you've got other people you can call on to provide notebooks, computers, phones, whatever you may buy for your company, it makes you a stronger company. That's what supplier diversity means. But when this anti-DENI rhetoric started to circulate, some took supplier diversity and stuck it in the DENI. DENI is HR related. It's human resources related. It was about hiring more people of color and involving more black and brown employees and having more black and brown employees, women on your boards of directors. Now, don't get me wrong. That's still very important. That's just not what NMSDC has been challenged to do or been charged to do, I should say.

11:40Don Cravins Jr.: We are a business organization. We help large businesses diversify their supply chain, make them more resilient, stronger by giving them more options of suppliers. And we've built some, we've seen some big companies grow, minority-owned companies grow, because these minority entrepreneurs were willing to get out there and compete for contract. Nobody gave them anything, Jabbar. That's right. It's another perception that maybe by being part of NMSDC or being a certified MBE, people get some kind of added advantage. No, no. They get seen. We were created to help black entrepreneurs get seen. The certification gets you seen, gets you in a doorway, does not guarantee you a contract.

12:20Don Cravins Jr.: And so the companies we've been working with for 54 years, many of these entrepreneurs, these brothers and sisters who build these billion dollar, in some cases, billion dollar firms. These are people who just work very, very hard to not only be seen, but to grow, to scale and to compete. Yeah. Yeah. And you always say they want to compete. They want to compete. They want to compete. Absolutely. No minority business I've ever run across. Hey, man, just give me something for nothing. They want access. They want an opportunity to be seen, to be heard and to compete and to win on their own laurels.

12:51Don Cravins Jr.: Yeah.

12:51Jabari Young: What are some of the things you're hearing from your members, especially the smaller business ones? Are they being discriminated against? I was talking to Cheryl McKissick and she was saying, you know, during her contract negotiations with, you know, in the construction world, people are checking off the boxes, but they're not really serious about doing business with minorities and women in certain cases. Right. Are you hearing that same thing from your members?

13:14Don Cravins Jr.: I'm hearing a lot of fear. Fear. I'm hearing fear from larger companies or people in their supply chains are saying we are being told by legal that we need to be careful in how we do things and how we phrase certain things. Yeah, they're going to get sued. They don't want to get sued. They don't want to get that letter from the Department of Justice saying, hey, we're going to find you. We're going to we're going to investigate you. But I will say this, Jabari, by and large, companies understand the business case of why having a diverse supply chain with qualified suppliers who happen to live in your community is a good thing for business.

13:45Don Cravins Jr.: And so what I'm seeing is I hear the stories of the ones and twos of the bad stories. I don't think what gets covered enough are the good stories. We still at NMSDC have over 400 corporate members. Our members are large corporations who have decided to dedicate themselves to making sure that they have a diverse supply chain. We still have over 400 members who are doing that work. They're doing it quietly. They're not looking for a target to be put on them, but they're still doing the work. And so what I say to my MBEs, my minority business enterprises, as well as my large members, we talk about the people who stopped.

14:23Don Cravins Jr.: We talk about the people who maybe got accused of not doing. We very rarely talk about the people who are still doing this work and they're doing it well. Not because it's the right thing to do. They're doing it because it's good business. Good business.

14:35Jabari Young: Yeah.

14:35Don Cravins Jr.: Yeah.

14:35Jabari Young: And they make the value proposition. Diversity, diversity of thought. Yes. Right. It's very important. It is. It is. People want to see who you're doing business with. They also want to see people on your board. Yes. They want to see people in your workforce represent them. Right. You go on T.D. Jakes' podcast and you kind of, you know, hit it, you know, very intelligent. We live in silos. Right. And when our tribes come together, that diversity is going to add more business to your life. Absolutely.

15:00Don Cravins Jr.: I tell big businesses, Jabbar, if you want to increase your customer base, you got to do business with your customers. That's right. You want to increase your customer base. You sell me stuff. You sell me phones. And African-Americans, largest purchaser of things, right? We buy a lot of things. You want me to buy your things? I want to see that you have people who work for you who look like me. I want to know that you're doing business with businesses from my community. That's just good capitalistic sense. That's just good business sense. We can't let people off the hook from that though Yeah, and so where we got caught I think with our pans down in some ways is we got Complacent in well people are doing it because it's the right thing to do What NMSDC and the chambers of commerce have to do a better job is and you helping us do that is to continue to make the Business case on why having a diverse supply chain It's not just the right thing to do for America.

15:50Don Cravins Jr.: It's the smart business thing to do for your company Yeah, 100%.

15:54Jabari Young: Well, I mean, again, you know, you were on that podcast, you know, TD Jays' podcast, and, you know, you had a comment and you said we need some of our bigger corporations to come back. I was taken out to say that some of them have left, you know, doing business with the Development Council. If so, are you trying to get them back? I mean, what's the scene right there?

16:12Don Cravins Jr.: We are. We're working very hard to bring some of those corporate members who... Have they left because of the DEI? I think people left for a lot of different reasons, Jabari. I think some people left the council because the council's work was not as tight as it needed to be. A lot of our legacy organizations, and I've worked at some of the best, including NMSDC, we've gotten complacent in our work. The struggle from 1972, although there's still a struggle, the struggle has matured. I mean, Jim Crow's nephew's in charge now, right, is Jimmy Crow now. now. And so when we look at the struggles, we have to mature as well as organizations.

16:48Don Cravins Jr.: And so I think some of our organizations, some of our corporate members left because of we weren't handling our business. Our research wasn't sound. Our business case wasn't there. The return on investment. Why should I do work with NMSDC or one of your 23 councils? And so what we are doing is not, we are fighting back on the bigotry and the misinformation around DE &I, but we also have an obligation to talk about successes and wins and return on investment and why having a diverse supply chain is good for your business. And so we had dropped the ball on some of that, if I'm being very honest with you about that.

17:26Don Cravins Jr.: And we have to do a better job. And I think if you look across the board, our traditional chambers of commerce, our traditional civil rights organizations, we are using this opportunity to sharpen our tools, our knives, and to build a better toolbox for the future.

17:41Jabari Young: Well, I mean, again, we talked at the top about how the, you know, Minority Business Development Agency kind of, you know, Development Council was born under that. And when I look at that agency today, it was an agency you were a part of, right? Undersecretary, you know, and it helped make that a permanent agency. But right now it's going through some changes. It's going through some very challenging times where it's looked upon as a skeleton agency, right? I mean, on paper it's alive, but because of a new administration, They came and just dismantled the staff, the funding. When you look at that agency, the minority business development agency, right, what does Don Craven see today in 2026, especially being as all the work that you did to help, you know, extend and as well as elevate that agency.

18:22Don Cravins Jr.: And now look at what happened to it. What do you see? I'm disappointed and I'm hurt. And I'm hurt for a couple of reasons. One, to give some historical context, the agency was created in 1969 as an executive order agency. from 1969 to 2021, it remains an executive order agency. So what I mean, it remains a temporary agency. Every president from 1969 to 2021, Republican or Democrat, every four years would rededicate the agency. Congress would fund the agency. Jabari, in 2021, we're not talking about 20 years ago. In 2021, Congress says minority business is an important part of this country. We need to make permanent the minority business development agency.

19:04Don Cravins Jr.: So almost the exact Congress you have today passes legislation in both the House and the Senate to make the MBDA, the minority business development agency, a permanent agency. They didn't change the name. They didn't say it needs to do something else. This pretty much this Congress we have today says we need a permanent agency focused on minority business development. And it needs to be led by an undersecretary. Now, people say, what the heck is an undersecretary? It's the third level in an administration. So I sat on the same level with the Census Bureau director, with the folks who who ran NOAA, the weather at the Department of Commerce.

19:40Don Cravins Jr.: So the Congress was very intentional that not only should we make this agency permanent, it needs to have a leader of a certain of a certain level. And so since 2021, the agency was being funded for the first time permanently. It had a permanent place. And unfortunately, when this administration took over, even the money that Congress allocated for the agency, the money has not been making it to the agency. And as you remember, at the beginning of this new administration, a lot of federal employees were told to stay home. And so it really had a disproportionate impact on an already small, brand new agency.

20:13Don Cravins Jr.: And so unfortunately, that agency is, like you said, a skeleton. But the agency still exists. You can't dismantle without Congress. Only Congress can dismantle the agency. And Congress has continued to allocate funding for the agency. So my hope is, Jabari, is that with a new Congress, at least in the interim, there'll be some attention paid to the Minority Business Development Agency. It provides services, counseling, contracting help to any business off the street, any business, any American business. But what makes it a unique agency is it really does understand the unique complexities that minority businesses face in a country that is soon going to be majority minority.

20:52Don Cravins Jr.: In a country that has 13 million minority-owned firms, why wouldn't America want there to be some, at least small government agency, dedicated to helping those firms succeed? America cannot grow in the future, Jabbar, if minority firms are not part of that growth.

21:08Jabari Young: Yeah, and listen, the agency's still caught up in a lot of lawsuits. Yes. Do you fear that it will get dismantled, or do you just fear it's right now going through that? hey, it's not getting funded, it's not getting staffed, but again, a new Congress, a new Senate, a new administration can come in and it's right back? Or do you think that over these next two years with the Trump administration in that something will happen where it gets removed? Are you fearful of that?

21:29Don Cravins Jr.: Well, I'm fearful of anything these days with this administration, but I'm not fearful that Congress will disband. I think Congress still understands we got to do something for minority businesses in this country. I think the same sentiment that Richard Nixon has, many Republicans in Congress who supported the Minority Business Development Act, which created the agency. I think those Republicans still understand minority businesses are critical to our infrastructure and they need, sometimes they need some counseling. Sometimes they need some extra coaching. It's a good investment. It's a good investment in them and it's a good investment in the country.

22:04Don Cravins Jr.: So I'm not as fearful of the agency going away as I am that this narrative. We normalize things in this country too easily. I'm seeing too many people accept some of the things that are going on in this country. And I'm hopeful that we don't accept the Minority Business Development Agency going away.

22:22Jabari Young: Here we are, 250 years of America, right? That celebration has passed. But one thing that did get maybe not kind of covered a lot, part of the good stuff, right, that goes under the radar, is that for the first time in U.S. history, there are over 200 ,000 black employer businesses, right? You're talking about black people who are employing people, right? At least one person or more, thus creating some generational wealth because they're paying people to go and invest and buy things and help the economy. I thought that was a very interesting stat by Brookings Institute. Again, top 200 ,000 employer businesses.

22:59Jabari Young: Those employees generated 249 billion in revenue, right? Supplied over 1.8 million jobs and paid out salaries of about$69 billion. And that was just in 2023 alone. When you hear those numbers and you hear that that is a positive direction, still a lot of disparity there, right? Still not, but at the same time, some momentum. When Don Craven hears those numbers, when he hears those stats about employer businesses, black employer businesses having some success, what comes to mind for you?

23:29Don Cravins Jr.: I get excited and I get excited about the potential. Now, you started framing it and I'm going to just add on what you said, we've got 4.6 million black owned firms in this country. 200 ,000 of them have employees. Now, we don't have a numbers problem, but we definitely have a scale problem. And so where I see a potential there is we need to grow that number, Jabbar, because typically the firms that are going to be able to do the contracts that we try to entice at MSDC are going to be employer based firms, people who have employees who are ready to grow, who are ready to scale. We don't have enough of them.

24:05Don Cravins Jr.: Four percent of black owned firms in this country, the 201 ,000 you're talking about, have employees. We've got to grow that. But that means we've got a lot of potential. We've got a lot of black entrepreneurs. We've got brothers and sisters who want to be in business. How do we get them to have employees? How do we get them to grow? How to scale? But to your point, we're creating billions of dollars in economic revenue, even with just 200 ,000 firms. And so I'm excited about the potential. Now, the great ownership transfer that McKinsey talks about, that five or six million firms are going to be a baby boom.

24:39Don Cravins Jr.: Yeah, they're going to be changing hands. Five trillion in enterprise value. Five trillion in enterprise value tells me that if those black entrepreneurs who do want to have employee based firms, rather maybe than starting a firm, there are going to be a lot of firms for sale over the next five to 10 years. Our parents and look, soon me, I'm 54. We're going to be retiring from these businesses. And so you've got these black owned businesses that were created in the 1970s after the civil rights movement, because we saw we fought for that ability. These folks are retiring. They build great businesses, some a million dollar, billion dollar businesses.

25:13Don Cravins Jr.: Who is going to take over those businesses? In a lot of cases, the kids are not necessarily wanting to take over those businesses. And so what we're telling minority firms, what we're telling black firms, entrepreneurs, rather than maybe starting a brand new firm and having to put 20, 30, 40 years of equity in it, maybe consider going to one of these baby boomers who are going to be transitioning out of the business and seeing that maybe you can't buy a business. And so NMSDC is absolutely going to be working with smart folks who know how to do this, particularly our brothers and sisters in the capital, the capital markets.

25:46Don Cravins Jr.: How can we have a platform, Jabari, at NMSDC that as our most successful black or minority firms are transitioning their ownership, that there's almost like a right of first refusal with some of the other minority firms so that we can keep those firms either in minority hands or in black hands or Latino hands. because we know that those firms, they live in a community and there are people who work in those firms. And so for that firm to be pulled out by maybe someone who doesn't get the community, it would be it could be very detrimental to the wealth in the minority community.

26:16Jabari Young: What's it like being a CEO of the development council? You know, you called it a dream job. I did. I did. Is this a dream job? You know, listen, the council was started, you know, 50 plus years ago when you were born. It was a started then. And so I can see the alignment. But what's it like being CEO now that you're running this business? You said that, you know, the organization was stagnant, lost some business. And here you are fighting this battle with DEI and things of that nature.

26:43Don Cravins Jr.: You still happy you took the job? I am. I am still. It's like being the brand new pastor at an old black Baptist church. And I'm Catholic. I can only imagine what that's like. Or being the new chancellor at an HBCU. And thankfully, I was able to attend one growing up. it's got the legacy, it's got the bones, but the folks who built it are no longer with us, right? And so it's a new deaconhood. It's a new group of people. We have to put people in the seats, in the pews, but people are looking for a new message. And so the message that existed in 1972, it cannot be the same message that it is today.

27:19Don Cravins Jr.: So I love the opportunity. I love the job. I love this work. I was raised by two black business owners. So it's in my DNA. But folks are expecting Jabari something better. They're expecting a message that resonates today. And they want to make, they want to build wealth. What I love about my organization, it's a wealth building organization. We are a group of black people and minority people who can talk about making money, not charity, not, not just nonprofit stuff, which that's all good stuff too. But my organization was dedicated. Our mission is to help supplier, minority suppliers, get contracts, scale, grow, make money, and build communities.

28:00Don Cravins Jr.: That's what I love about the job. That mission has not changed. And I would say that mission is more important today because the country is so much more diverse today than it was in 1972. Yeah.

28:09Jabari Young: What's the biggest positive, positive surprise of the rule? Something maybe you didn't expect, but it turned into a positive for you.

28:15Don Cravins Jr.: I didn't expect to see so many brothers and sisters and people of color doing well quietly in America. Yeah. I was in Detroit this past week, Jabbar, with my father. That's a mecca up there. Some of the names of a lot of the companies in Detroit. And I don't think people have, you know, people kind of stopped focusing on Detroit when he was going through some of its tough economic times. But I brought my father with me. My father is still a very young 79. And I said, Dad, I have a work trip. Come hang out with me. I want you to see what a typical day is like with me. Bring your father to work day.

28:44Don Cravins Jr.: My father grew up in southwest Louisiana. You just didn't see minority owned firms, black owned firms, Jabbar, making millions of dollars a year. Single million dollars a year. And for us to spend time with normal brothers and sisters who are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year because of the automobile industry and the hard work that they put in. And that is what gives me hope that if you give people a shot, if you give people a chance and we work together, we can turn things economically for African-Americans in this country. And so that is the biggest surprise for me is I didn't even have a scale in my mind that there are brothers and sisters who are doing very well in this country because of their hard work, their fortitude.

29:28Don Cravins Jr.: And somebody gave them a shot. Yeah.

29:30Jabari Young: Yeah. I know I didn't catch every name on the list. 25 was not enough. You just said a lot of them that are operating quietly and they were hard. Some of them are hard to find to want to operate quietly and do the role respectful. But, you know, you just want more of it out there to change the narrative. You want more of it.

29:44Don Cravins Jr.: In our database of 15, 16 ,000 certified MBEs, 190 of our firms are doing 100 million a year in revenue or more. I just don't think people see that enough. I don't think people hear it enough. And so part of what we have to do, and that's why I appreciate you letting me come on the podcast. we have to tell that story. These are not charity cases. These are businesses that are growing, that are competing, that are working, that hire people. And they're not just hiring black and brown people. They're hiring everybody. And so when I said earlier, we were caught in some ways with our pants down, I don't know that our organizations have been doing a good enough job of telling that story on behalf of our R &Bs.

30:22Jabari Young: Yeah, that's probably one of my favorite parts of doing the list is because I'm going around and I'm seeing the websites of the company. It's just like, wow, these employee bases are very diverse, right? Very diverse. With positives, though, there comes a negative. What's the biggest negative surprise of being a CEO with something you didn't expect that's a negative?

30:40Don Cravins Jr.: I think the negative is I did not expect that folks, and when I say folks, I mean this generally. Big companies, minority-owned companies, people who have been doing this work for generations would allow some of this foolishness, I'll call it, some of this misinformation that has been going around about supplier diversity, about supply chains. But I've been a little surprised at how some folks have capitulated or normalized some of this stuff out of fear. I hear it often. Don, you know, it's never going to go back to the way it was. And I and I look at that, you know, after this, it doesn't matter who wins the next election.

31:14Don Cravins Jr.: It's never going to go back, Don, to the way it was. Do you buy that? Well, I'm going to say it this way, Jabbar. I kind of hope it doesn't go back to the way it was because it wasn't good for black folks the way it was before either. We were getting less than one, black men were getting less than 1 % of federal contract dollars. When you add what we were doing in federal contracting, minorities weren't doing very well. If you looked at the best run companies here in even New York, supplier diversity, 8 to 13 % of their contracting dollars were going to qualified minority firms. And so the old way wasn't that doggone good either.

31:46Don Cravins Jr.: I don't buy, though, that people are not going to look at race and ethnicity and who you are, veteran status, small, ever again in contract. No, I don't buy that. So what I say to people is maybe it shouldn't go back to the way it was. Maybe it needs to go back to a better way that we develop together.

32:04Jabari Young: Yeah.

32:05Don Cravins Jr.: Supplier diversity can be better than it was in the past. You talked about it. We've got a couple of examples. We've got a couple of hundred examples of successful companies. I want a couple of thousand examples of successful companies. 4.6 million black owned firms in this country, 200 ,000, 4 % of them have employees. I don't want to go back to that. I want to do better than that. And so, yeah, I don't buy, I don't buy the, the, the world has changed. During George Floyd, large companies were begging to give minority organizations dollars and to be more inclusive. And then just three, four years later, It has flipped on its entire head.

32:43Don Cravins Jr.: And so now those those same minority run organizations have to be punished for that. That has to change.

32:49Jabari Young: Well, listen, that passion and that that that leadership came from somewhere. Right. Let's take a step back. Yes. You're born in Houston. Right. Raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. Yeah. Coming up again down in Louisiana area down south. What was that like for you growing up in Louisiana?

33:02Don Cravins Jr.: It was a blessing, brother. It was I grew up with two parents who who understood entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship. My parents, I was born in Houston. We were only there for a year, Jabari. My mom was a teacher. My dad opened a paint and body shop. And I heard the first story about this the other night. I said, Dad, tell me about this paint and body shop you had. He said, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I graduated from Southern University in Baton Rouge. We moved to Houston, thinking it was the big city for your mom and I, and tried paint and body, but that just wasn't going to be for me. And my mom wanted to go back home to Lafayette where she could get help raising me with her parents.

33:34Don Cravins Jr.: And so thereafter, my parents went into the insurance business and they've been in the insurance business for over 40 years, small independent insurance agency. Don Creven Senior Insurance, still open today, right? Still open today, brother. And my dad's there right now, as a matter of fact. But in the meantime, Jabari had a Creole restaurant. We had a local newspaper that focused on the black community in southwest Louisiana. My parents were original co-founders of the Southwest Louisiana Black Chamber of Commerce. I got a dinner table focus group every night on what it was like to be a minority and a black-owned business in the Deep South.

34:09Don Cravins Jr.: And every night I got a chance to hear the good and the not so good that came with that. It allowed me to be the man I am today. It helped raise my brother and my sister. It was a great thing. It provided us a great life. But I also saw the trials and the tribulations that came with that, trying to make payroll, trying to recruit customers, being denied opportunities with the banks when maybe someone down across the track was not denied that opportunity. And so that has stuck with me. That's where the passion comes from. Yeah. And it will stay with me and stick with me. And my parents are still black entrepreneurs today, still in the fight.

34:46Jabari Young: Yeah. Yeah. Spending time in the House, in Louisiana House, the Senate, was with the National Urban League as well. I was head of government affairs at the Williams Company, right, in Oklahoma-based, traded on the New York Stock Exchange. And, you know, again, a career on Washington, a career in Washington, undersecretary, you know, for the minority business development agency. But when you think about everything that you've been through, right, and you've seen a lot and been in a lot of rooms, but still as a leader, someone who is making decisions, what would you say is the biggest failure? What's Don Craven's biggest failure?

35:19Jabari Young: And what did you learn from it?

35:20Don Cravins Jr.: I think my biggest failure is probably not spending enough time with the kids, the first group of kids that my wife and I had, the older kids. You know, as a young man, you think that the world is mine and I got to conquer it and there's no tomorrow and I got to be the most successful. I have to be the best state representative there ever was. And I'm going to be governor someday and I'm going to be the senator. And I ran for Congress. And I thought as a young man that every decision that I made that day was the most important decision, Jabari. And as you get to be older and wise and the grays start to settle in, you start to realize that life as much is not a rare.

35:56Don Cravins Jr.: It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. And you can't get back tomorrow. Yeah. And so I think that's in some ways my greatest failure is not spending the time. I can't get back those those those those early days of my first two kids when I was driving back and forth to the legislature, thinking I'm big, high and mighty Senator Cravens and the state is counting on me to save it today. And I wish I could go back and be with Dominique and Trey a little bit more. I've got a younger kid now. You know, the wife and I found our youth again. And so I've got a teenager now that maybe is thinking, Dad's spending too much time with me.

36:34Don Cravins Jr.: Like, I wish I had more of the other dad. But, you know, you learn from your mistakes and you heal them. And thankfully, we still have some time to spend some time, even though they're adults now.

36:43Jabari Young: Well, listen, when you're on your work trips and, you know, you get a moment to yourself and you happen to maybe think back on your career and still think about the things that you need to do, you know, with your new role at the Development Council. But what would you say is you had to describe your career so far in one word? Where would that be? Intentional. Intentional. Intentional. Why intentional?

37:04Don Cravins Jr.: If you look at the opportunities I've taken, the jobs I've taken, I'm also in the National Guard. I'm a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard. I joined the National Guard at 37. I wasn't a youngster. It's all been intentional. It was something I wanted to do at 18, didn't get a chance to do it, but found a way to do it later in life. I've tried to make my decisions with an intention towards the future. And so I don't have a single job, good or bad. Even one that I say, man, that didn't work out, that I say I didn't know what I was getting myself into. And so I've tried to be very intentional, Jabari, in the decisions I've made.

37:35Don Cravins Jr.: Because my decisions, I got married young. My decisions didn't just impact Don. They also impacted my wife and my kids as well. So I've really tried to carry that intention with me. Don't just do this because it's good for you. Try to do it because it's good for the family and the people you bring with you. What would your parents say? What would your grandparents say? So I've tried to be intentional in my decisions.

37:55Jabari Young: Yeah. As you now, again, lead the National Minority Supplier Development Council as president and CEO, someone sees or hears this interview and they come up to you on the street and say, Hey, Don, I saw the interview that you did. Why should I join this organization? Why should I go and take this business that I'm trying to start up in the supply chain world and come and be a member with your organization? Why should I do that?

38:17Don Cravins Jr.: What are you telling them? Business is still about relationships. It's about who you know, how you get to know them, and how much time you spend with them. In order for a business to get a contract with another business or with the government, you have to spend some time developing a relationship. Business is not just going to do business with you because you brought the best proposal. They'll do business with you because you have the best proposal. And I know you. I trust you. I've done business with you before. Somebody recommended you. NMSDC still gets that business owner seen, heard, and in the room.

38:45Don Cravins Jr.: And so, as I've said before, NMSDC doesn't guarantee a contract or guarantee success, but it guarantees some access. It guarantees you can at least get to knock on a door. That's still the biggest issue that minority businesses are facing, and especially black businesses, is getting the opportunity to knock on the door, to even know where the door is located. Because my parents didn't know where the door was, and my grandparents surely didn't even know their door existed. NMSDC is still the best game in town, Jabari, to make sure that minority businesses can be seen. That's what that certification means.

39:18Don Cravins Jr.: I'm here. See me. Hear me. And they got Don Cravens literally running around Manhattan and other places saying, I've got the best. Forget that they're minority-owned. They're the best. I need you to see them.

39:30Jabari Young: Yeah. Well, any relationship-building technique that you would advise someone to do? A lot of times, Don, we don't talk to each other like that anymore, right? But I mean, there are relationship building techniques to use, right? I mean, I tell people all the time, I, you know, spend a few hours before the holidays around early November. And I just sit in the parking lot and I call a lot of people I know. So you'll be expecting to call from me this year. Right. Just to say happy holidays before the mass text comes in. Hey, I don't want anything. Just say happy holidays to you. I hope you and your family has a great one because Thanksgiving's coming up.

40:02Jabari Young: Christmas is coming up. So I like to get it out of the way sooner. And then you get that time with people because during the holiday season, everybody's texting one another. Yes.

40:09Don Cravins Jr.: Do you have any relationship? Look, I love yours. I like wishing people happy birthdays. Just small things like that. And social media makes that easy. It's easy to find out when a person's birthday is or you can get it from them in a conversation. But someone getting that birthday text from you that you did not expect to send it to you. Think about it. It makes you feel a certain way. The other thing I think people have totally lost the art on is a handwritten thank you note. Yeah. A handwritten thank you note. I know it's hard with snail mail and all those things, but think about how it makes you feel when you see a handwritten thank you note that someone took the time to write, not chat GPT or AI it, and to send it and put it in the mail and to send it to you just to say, thank you for the meeting.

40:51Don Cravins Jr.: Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate what you're doing. If I can ever be of service, don't forget about me and my business. Those are little things, but I have found that they make a big difference in the end in building relationships. Yeah. Well,

41:02Jabari Young: paying it forward and get you out of here in a few minutes because you're a CEO, Don. You got calls to make. I'm busy, man. You got to make some folks some money. But, you know, when you look at paying it forward, right, what's the top advice that you would give, Don Cravens would give for someone that's starting your own business today or looking to go out and buy one through entrepreneur, through acquisition is what they call it, ETA. What's your advice to building a business here in 2026?

41:24Don Cravins Jr.: Have your stuff together. It's not enough just to say, I want to start a business or buy a business. You have to have your stuff together. I'm going to use that term. Have your stuff in the right place. Make sure your plan is right. Make sure you've got the right attorney, the right tax. Your stuff has to be together. Because we talked about this earlier, Jabari, things may never go back to the way they are. They were. But people are going to have to look to people again to build this country. People are going to be looking extra hard to make sure that if you are a person of color, that your stuff is together, right?

41:58Don Cravins Jr.: I want to give this young man a chance. I want to give this young woman a chance. Is their stuff together, their documents together, their incorporation, their insurance, their bonding? And so that's why the Minority Business Development Agency, our SBA centers, our Department of Defense accelerators, all of those things are important. Our chambers are important. Listening to your program is important. An entrepreneur who thinks they know it all or have it all together is an entrepreneur who's not going to get business. Yeah. It's a constant learning. And so I tell my young entrepreneurs or new entrepreneurs, it's every day.

42:30Don Cravins Jr.: Learn something new. Make your business stronger. Make your business better. Don't lead with who you look, what you look like. Lead with what you can do for this company. That's how you get business. Yeah.

42:39Jabari Young: Have your stuff together. Yep. Love it. Love it. Get you out of here on some fun stuff, Mr. Cravens. And I appreciate the time. Thank you so much for coming to the NASDAQ. If I gave you 10 grand right now, right, what was the first thing Don Cravens invest in? You mean like actual what stocks I invest in? A home, a stock, you know, it could be a membership for the Development Council.

42:58Don Cravins Jr.: I want a boat. A boat? I want a boat, man. And I don't need a fancy boat. You know, I grew up in Louisiana. I need a little boat that on the weekends I can go fishing and I can, I live in Maryland and we have a wonderful bunch of beautiful rivers there. I just need a boat that I can put out somewhere near Annapolis that on the weekends, and you won't recognize me. I'm going to have my baseball cap on and my fishing, my LSU fishing shirt. and I just want to go somewhere where I can get some peace and some quiet so that when I come back on Monday, I'm ready to hit the ground running again for the MBEs.

43:28Don Cravins Jr.: And so my wife will laugh when she hears that because I've been asking for that boat, still haven't gotten that boat.

43:33Jabari Young: Christmas is coming up now.

43:34Don Cravins Jr.: I don't think we get that boat while we have a teenager in the house.

43:38Jabari Young: They take all the money. They take all the money. Electricity bill. That's right.

43:41Don Cravins Jr.: But if you gave me 10, I'm going to try to get that little boat. I love it. I love it. I love it. Don Craven's a superpower. What is it? I think it's empathy. Empathy. Empathy. My dad was big. My mom and dad were big on. My grandmother, Grandmother Cravens, Edmonia Cravens would always say, we're not better than anyone else. And just because we may have this and they don't have that. I remember my dad, if I would make fun of someone who had a jalopy, my dad said, no, no, no, we don't laugh at people. Those people are working hard. And so empathy is what I've tried. My parents have instilled in me as I look at people and rather than seeing what's wrong with them, I always think about how they got to where they are and what can we do to help them get better.

44:20Don Cravins Jr.: I try to do that with my employees. I try to do that in the company that I run. I try to do that with my board. I try to do that with my family. It's about empathy, being in somebody's place, understanding where they're coming from. I let people people. I try to let people people. So when somebody does something that disappoints me or that I don't agree with, rather than getting mad at them, try to figure out, I wonder what got him or her to that place. Because people are going to be people. They're going to be themselves. And so I think that's my superpower. Empathy.

44:47Jabari Young: Yeah, I love it. You look at the supply chain business today, you know, again, suppliers, which you guys specialize in. A lot of stuff still happening, right? Tariffs, inflation, high diesel costs. Right. There's still, you know, some problems in the economy with layoffs, you know, AIs impacting things. But when you look at the supplier chain business today, right, a huge part of our economy. What is Don Craven see?

45:11Don Cravins Jr.: Well, you're right. Right now, I see a lot of potential, but I see a lot of risk as well. The supply chain industry is going to always be there in some form or fashion. I don't know that AI will totally replace it, but I tell my minority businesses, those businesses who aren't using AI, they will be replaced. And so it's not the technology itself that will replace people. I believe it's people who don't understand it, don't educate themselves on it, and don't use it who will be replaced by those companies who do. The tariffs, the economy, it's making everything more expensive, right? And so as a result, it's absolutely making our suppliers goods and services, their manufacturing, it's making that more expensive as well.

45:47Don Cravins Jr.: And so that concerns me and it's concerning a lot of our smaller manufacturers, a lot of our smaller suppliers, but that's not always going to be the case. And so what I'm telling them is hang in there, be resilient, continue to compete. And when things turn around and they come around, be the best so that you can start winning again.

46:04Jabari Young: Yeah. Love it. Love it. We'll stay there, get you out of here on this. Good to Great, right? One of my favorite business books, Jim Collins is Good to Great. What's the difference between a good supplier business, right? A good business is helping in the supply chain and a great one.

46:18Don Cravins Jr.: I think a good supplier business is conservative, right? A good supplier business meets their margins. They live within those margins and they stay good for a long time. I think the great ones are the ones who take some risk from time to time. I talked to Dave Stewart, Mr. Dave Stewart in St. Louis and the Worldwide, and he tells us, he tells the story about how he was a black man opening a company called Worldwide Technology who is not a technology guy. That's a risk, Jabbar. I mean, you got to be willing to take a big risk as an African-American man from the South to say, I'm opening a technology company.

46:54Don Cravins Jr.: I'm not a technology guy. He worked on the railroad. He told me about all his path, but I'm going to take this risk because I believe in myself. That's what makes a great company. Now, you know, high risk, high reward, but good companies, I think do fine.

47:07Jabari Young: Yeah.

47:07Don Cravins Jr.: A great company is that entrepreneur who is willing to take that extra risk and won as a result of it. David Stewart definitely took a risk.

47:14Jabari Young: The reward is phenomenal. $20 billion in annual revenue for that company.

47:20Don Cravins Jr.: But there are others, right? There are. There are so many others who are doing a Janice Howroyd in Los Angeles with Act One. We've got Seal Company. I saw several of them in Detroit the other day. They're brothers and sisters out there who are taking calculated risks, and they're winning. They're doing it quietly, but they're staying in their communities. They're not forgetting where they come from. They're hiring people. We're seeing it. We just need more of them. That's right.

47:43Jabari Young: Don, I appreciate the time, man. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the development counseling and help, you know, helping us put, you know, the 25 business to watch list out and the work that you're doing. I know it's not easy. It's very hard. You have 16 ,000 constituents that are always looking over you and making sure that you're pushing everything in the right direction. So good luck the rest of the way.

48:03Don Cravins Jr.: And I hope you get that boat. Right. I appreciate it. But look, we've got 23 affiliates, Jabari, located all around America. And so if people are interested in becoming a certified supplier or they just want some entrepreneurial help, not all of our programs are just for MBEs. Many of our programs are for socially and economically disadvantaged business. And we're not going to turn anybody away. Check out one of our regional affiliates and you can get some great help there as well. Yeah. Love it.

48:28Jabari Young: Don Cravens here at the NASDAQ market site talking all things business development. I know what I took out of it. Right. I got to start sending those birthday texts right now. Right. It's going to get them on the calendar. Appreciate you watching. Appreciate you listening.