Mar

National Council of Asian American Business Associations and Wells Fargo Engage Nuance Marketing to Stimulate Change

Edward Cates (Nuance Marketing), Jamie Borromeo (NCAABA), Sachi Koto (Sachi Koto Communications)

Recently, I consulted with the National Council of Asian American Business Associations (NCAABA) to deliver a business conference that would be unique and add value to an audience of Asian business owners that are weary in today’s bleak economic climate. On February 26th & 27th in Foster City, CA the “Stimulating Change Summit was held and received as a tremendous success in spite of a challenging economy. My client Jamie Borromeo, Executive Director of NCAABA worked tirelessly to engage her team and the most prominent Asian Business Leaders in the country along with numerous organizations dedicated to creating equality for diverse businesses.

Invitation for NCAABA's 2009 Stimulating Change Summit (designed by Nuance Marketing)

Wells Fargo/Wachovia was approached by NCAABA in 2008 regarding their desire to develop a partnership. In non-traditional fashion, Wells Fargo responded with not only sponsorship support of the “Stimulating Change Summit” but also engaged my firm Nuance Marketing to partner with NCAABA to provide marketing, communications, PR and event management support. In the landscape of today’s partnerships/sponsorships it’s hard to find sponsors for events as budgets have been stripped lean making it challenging for non-profit organizations that depend on strong corporate support for programming. One thing I’ve learned is that the Wells Fargo Corporate Supplier Diversity team is non-traditional and interested in creating sustainable development for the suppliers and organizations they support.

NCAABA partnered with Wells Fargo to present the Stimulting Change Summit 2009

Jim Terrell, Sonya Dukes (Wells Fargo), Jamie Borromeo (NCAABA), Marco Perez (Wells Fargo) and Edward Cates (Nuance Marketing)

On Thursday 2/26 NCAABA hosted an Asian Business Leaders invitation only dinner to further communicate the vision and direction for the organization but to also capture a bit of history. Simulataneous to the dinner,we were conducting a taping of Asian Business owners and leaders to document the challenges and disparity that face the Asian Pacific American Business community. Former CNN correspondent and communications consultant (Sachi Koto Communications) Sachi Koto served as the host for the video segment that will be entitled “Our Mission, Our Voice”. Sachi is a tremendous talent with true passion for advancing the agenda for the Asian Business community. Sachi is also a true Georgia Peach and it was great to have a bit of home with me out in Northern California as we are both Atlanta based. We taped for 4.5 hours and heard compelling stories from a community that culturally values privacy and has gone undocumented until our project.

Friday 2/27, NCAABA convened the “Stimulating Change Summit” conference activities. With dynamic panels covering topics including; contractor empowerment, supplier diversity and the Small Business Administration. Sonya Dukes SVP of Corporate Supplier Diversity introduced two keynote speakers, Gary Schlossberg, VP and Senior Economist for Wells Fargo and also Svetlana Kim, author and inspirational speaker.

2009 Stimulating Change Summit's Supplier Diversity Panel moderated by Sonja Daniels from Beyond Boundaries Consulting

To create connections between the corporations and government agencies in attendance, participants engaged in a sourcing roundtable that allowed businesses to share their capabilities and services. Over 40 businesses engaged in three roundtable rotations and it was viewed as a great success.

Rudy Pamintuan, former Chairman of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islanders with Edward Cates

Rudy Pamintuan (Sherman Consulting, U.S. Asia Center), former Chairman of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islanders with Edward Cates

Working with NCAABA was a great match between my agency’s capabilities and their immediate marketing and communication needs. Nuance provided consultation to NCAABA that included website development consultation and copywriting, creative design services, strategic marketing and communication planning, management consultation, event management support, presentation development, video direction/production, speech writing and I even served as Master of Ceremonies for the event. Matching solutions with challenges can create amazing results especially when you work with talented teams like NCAABA’s.

Instead of waiting for change to happen, NCAABA decided to create change or rather “Stimulate Change” by creating a unique value added event. I learned as much as I contributed toward the event’s success and look forward to NCAABA continuing to trailblaze for diverse businesses nationwide.

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