Apollo recently announced the achievement of over $1 billion in diverse spending across its funds’ private equity portfolio as part of the firm’s Supplier Diversity Program. And this represents a significant milestone in Apollo’s objective of expanding opportunity across the workplace, marketplace, and communities in which it and its funds’ portfolio companies operate and contributing to a more inclusive economy. Building on this success, Apollo announced an expanded target to achieve $2 billion in diverse spending across its funds’ private equity portfolio by the end of 2025.
Apollo’s supplier diversity initiative pursues year-over-year growth in diverse spend across Apollo’s funds’ portfolio companies with an emphasis on minority- and women-owned suppliers. And since launching the initiative in 2021, Apollo’s Portfolio Performance Solutions (APPS) team has collaborated with portfolio company procurement teams to measure diverse spending and identify channels for expanding partnerships with diverse-owned businesses while also accelerating progress by developing and implementing tailored supplier diversity strategies and toolkits. Several of Apollo’s funds’ portfolio companies had made significant strides last year that contributed to the $1 billion spending achievement, including ADT, Novolex, and Yahoo, etc.
As Apollo’s Supplier Diversity Program evolves into its next phase, Apollo will seek to expand the reach of its efforts:
– Working closely with private equity firm Ariel Alternatives’ Project Black, Apollo will host a Supplier Diversity Summit, enabling firms to exchange leading practices and support the growth of high-performing diverse suppliers. And this Summit underscores Apollo’s belief that the alternative investment management industry has a unique opportunity to drive significant economic impact for underrepresented communities through programmatic objectives that advance value creation for portfolio companies.
– Apollo is also committed to increasing the breadth of the supplier pool for portfolio companies to create long-term economic opportunity for diverse-owned businesses.
Plus Apollo seeks to have a long-term positive impact in the communities where it and its funds’ portfolio companies operate, serving the needs of its clients and creating value for its shareholders. Last year, Apollo’s private equity funds’ portfolio companies reached 39% board diversity across company boards in the U.S. and Canada, and in 2021 Apollo was a founding signatory of the Institutional Limited Partners Association’s (ILPA) newly launched Diversity in Action initiative.
In partnership with CareerBuilder, Apollo is operating Apollo VetNet and Apollo HBCUNet to connect military veterans and HBCU students and alumni to career opportunities at the firm and Apollo’s funds’ portfolio companies. Plus Apollo also co-launched AltFinance, a $90 million, 10-year initiative designed to build pathways for more HBCU students to pursue careers in alternative investment management.
KEY QUOTES:
“Exceeding our diverse spend goal demonstrates great progress in our journey to drive economic impact for diverse-owned businesses. While we are proud of this accomplishment, we understand that our work is just beginning. Going forward, we will continue to work with these businesses to drive long-term, sustainable value creation across our funds’ portfolio companies, while also pushing for greater impact across our industry.”
– Matt Nord and David Sambur, Co-Heads of Private Equity for Apollo
“The high level of enthusiasm around Apollo’s Supplier Diversity Program displayed by portfolio companies played a key role in allowing us to achieve this milestone. We’re looking forward to continuing this collaboration as we grow our program through new partnerships, consistent metrics tracking, and other new initiatives to advance industry-wide progress, in addition to our expanded $2 billion financial target.”
– Carletta Ooton, Head of ESG for Private Equity at Apollo
“I am excited to congratulate Apollo on this impressive milestone. At NMSDC, last year we set the ambitious goal of achieving $1 trillion in annual revenue for our certified minority business enterprises, and the dedication to supplier and business diversity from organizations with the size and scale of Apollo is critical to this effort, as well as our ability to end the racial wealth gap. NMSDC looks forward to continuing to work with Apollo in its ongoing efforts to expand and maximize the reach of its Supplier Diversity Program.”
– NMSDC CEO and President Ying McGuire
