Kanita D. Sandidge joined the NMSDC staff in July 2005 as Director, Centers of Excellence (COE), a program to enhance successful business relationships between corporations and MBEs by strengthening corporate minority supplier development processes. She is responsible for coordination of the COE program, guidelines, and program activities. Recently, she also became Interim Director, New Business Development responsible for NMSDC's Corporate Plus® program. Immediately before joining the NMSDC, Kanita was principal of her own consulting business specializing in supplier diversity and human resources diversity. She also served as a facilitator at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Saturday Series: Coaching for African American Women.

She is a former AT&T executive with proven experience managing diverse teams in the areas of operations, sales support, human resources and administration, and the enterprise-wide supplier diversity program. She helped the company achieve a goal of over $1 billion in minority and women business enterprise (M/WBE) payments over four consecutive years. During her tenure, AT&T received several prestigious awards including the Distinguished Corporate Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency and the U.S. Small Business Administration; the National Minority Supplier Development Council's Business Consortium Fund's President's Star Award; and, the Dialogue on Diversity Corporate Excellence Award

Kanita co-designed a "Best Practices in MBE Programs" seminar that was the first educational joint venture between Diversity Information Resources and the NAPM MBDG. The seminar was so well received by the participants that the project was adopted as an annual component of their education strategy and is still being conducted today. It also served as a model for other advocacy associations.

Ms. Sandidge holds an AB in Mathematics from Cornell University and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University. She has completed Executive Development Programs at Penn State University, the Center for Creative Leadership, Columbia University, Stanford University, and the Center for Women, Leadership and the Future. She has received national recognition for her accomplishments in the area of minority and women business enterprise development, is a member of a variety of civic and professional organizations, and has served on numerous Boards of Directors.