Breaking Barriers: Rodney Strong’s Impact on Supplier Diversity and Inclusive Procurement in Georgia

The Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council is approaching its 50^th year of service to Georgia’s business community. Founded by progressive corporations that saw the value in diversifying their supply chains and offering business opportunity to everyone, the GMSDC has been training and developing Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) firms and facilitating mutually beneficial business partnerships since 1975. As the Council prepares for this upcoming milestone year, we would like to feature prominent leaders in Georgia from time to time, as our way of acknowledging the contributions of so many to the progress we’ve made in inclusive procurement. There could not be a more fitting opening entry in this series than Mr. Rodney K. Strong, Esq.

Rodney K. Strong is a dynamic, Atlanta-based attorney and consultant whose name is a household word in cultural, political and economic circles throughout the nation. The CEO of Griffin and Strong, P.C., a public policy law firm headquartered in Peachtree Center, Rodney has served a long list of cities, counties, school districts, departments of transportation, airports and other governmental entities since the inception of the firm in 1992. Griffin and Strong is a go-to expert on one of today’s most talked-about topics – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – and a powerful partner to corporate entities nationwide as they deal with contracting, community development and real estate issues. 

A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Rodney is a proud graduate of Atlanta’s Morehouse College who went on to receive his law degree from the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis in his hometown. Among his many accomplishments championing equity in procurement, Rodney has served as the supplier diversity consultant for a host of big projects, including Atlanta’s own Mercedes Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena. For more than 30 years, Rodney Strong and his team have led the charge in the research, planning, implementation and execution of diverse supplier inclusion programs, but his story begins much earlier, when a bright young lawyer was a central party to a milestone era in Atlanta’s history.

The legendary Maynard H. Jackson, Jr. was Mayor of Atlanta for a total of three terms, from 1974 to 1982 and 1990 to 1994. The first black mayor of a Southern City in America, he was renowned for the many barriers he broke, and an icon to people of color across the Southeast and nationwide. Mayor Jackson pioneered the concept of municipal Supplier Diversity through his implementation of the City’s Equal Business Opportunity Program. Even 40 years later, Atlanta’s EBO program is still the standard playbook for a city or county looking to engage diverse suppliers. While the Mayor took on a reluctant business community – who can forget his bold decision to padlock the construction site for the airport that now bears his name, in order to compel majority contractors to cooperate – the groundwork for the policy, standards and legislative work in that area was laid by a young attorney on his staff by the name of Rodney Strong.

Rodney was the longtime Director of the City’s Office of Contract Compliance, drafting the regulations and supervising the team responsible for operating and enforcing EBO. There were many personal, legal and political challenges in those days, but there was always one constant. When Atlanta achieved a major business milestone, the ‘money shot’ photo of all the assembled City leaders featured Maynard H. Jackson, Jr. in the center, and a young Rodney K. Strong in the background. From the utilization of disparity studies to frame up the need for supplier diversity and the development of legal strategy, to drafting legislation and shepherding it through city councils and county commissions across the nation, nobody has ever done it better – or with less fanfare – than Rodney Strong. He and his partners are the wind beneath so many of the wings of what makes our City great. The GMSDC is grateful for his amazing energy and fierce dedication to the relentless pursuit of economic equity.

Rodney K. Strong has been a stalwart in our community for 41 years, since he returned to Atlanta after law school in 1983. He is truly living history in our City. To learn more about Griffin and Strong, P.C. and their groundbreaking work in Supplier Diversity, visit their website here. 

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