Veronica Manuel-Gilbert
Corporate Manager of Supplier Diversity
Johnson & Johnson

Veronica Manuel-Gilbert is manager of Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) Supplier Diversity program. She works with supplier diversity team members at 27 operating companies in the US and Puerto Rico, as well as J&J global category leaders to provide collaborative strategies and processes to drive diverse and small business supplier engagement. In 2008, her first year in the role, she was instrumental in increasing J&J’s M/WBE spend by 16% (compared to 2% growth in the prior year), an increase over $120MM. For performance in 2008 Johnson & Johnson was recognized as Diversity Inc. Magazine’s 2009 Top Corporation for Diversity, a 2009 WBENC Top Corporation for Womens Business Enterprise and a 2009 DiversityBusiness.com Top Corporation for Multicultural Business Opportunity.

Veronica has been with Johnson & Johnson for over 18 years, previously working at Ethicon Endo-Surgery, one of its medical device companies as Strategic Sourcing Manager responsible for over $400MM of spend in the procurement of packaging, logistics, and capital equipment, in addition to indirect procurement responsibilities which included sourcing goods and services for Operations, Sales and Marketing, Research and Development, Information Management, and all other functional divisions headquartered in Cincinnati. In this role she was also responsible for EES’s Supplier Diversity program.

Veronica started as an equipment engineer supporting Operations manufacturing in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1996 she assumed management responsibility for the Materials Technology, Tool & Process Engineering and Value Analysis groups, all in Supplier Management Department, where she was responsible for raw materials consolidation, specification and sourcing, biocompatibility testing, database creation and $4.5MM in supplier cost improvement projects. She championed EES’s introduction of Process Excellence into Supplier Management and their supply base in 1999 and became EES’s first certified Green Belt Champion in 2000.

Veronica has been a life time supporter of diversity efforts, as a liaison and an active recruiter for J&J at NBMBAA and NSBE Conferences, a member of Women’s Leadership Initiative, a former steering committee member for EES’s African American Leadership Council, an advisory board member of the Diverse Manufacturing Supply Chain Alliance, member of NMSDC’s Consumer Working Group and a formal and informal mentor of many minority and women professionals and business owners.

Veronica came to Johnson & Johnson with over 11 years of business experience with Procter & Gamble Company, Phillip Morris USA and NASA in roles supporting design engineering, research and development and process improvement projects. She holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering, and a Masters in Engineering Management, both from Cleveland State University. She is also a certified Process Excellence Black Belt and has completed supplier Rutgers University/NMSDC diversity professional program.