James Sturgis
Ahold USA

James Sturgis, Jr. is the Director of Supplier Diversity for the Royal Ahold family of U.S.-based retail grocers. Ahold is an international group of quality supermarkets and foodservice operators based in the United States and Europe. In New England, James represents Stop & Shop. James joined Stop & Shop and the Ahold family in October of 2004. Previous to this role, James was Manager of Supplier Diversity for PepsiCo, Inc. It was at PepsiCo that James honed his supplier diversity skills. At Ahold, James is responsible for ensuring diverse supplier participation in every category of buying. These categories include items that Ahold resells in its grocery stores as well as products and services required to conduct business (not-for-resale).

James has worked for a diverse group of companies in a wide variety of roles. Some of the companies include General Motors, Lockheed, ATT and Motorola. James’ supply chain experience includes roles in manufacturing operations, industrial engineering and strategic sourcing. James’ experience prior to taking on the supplier diversity role made him perfect for the assignment.

James received his bachelor of industrial engineering degree from Georgia Institute of Technology and his MBA from the University of Miami. Currently, James is a member of the board of directors for the Center for Women & Enterprise, the Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council and the Maryland/DC Minority Supplier Development Council.

Why CWE? At the end of the day, my job like many others in this organization is to support the objectives of the organization.  Quite broadly, those objectives are to increase sales and decrease costs.  I find that by engaging diverse businesses, in this case, women-owned businesses (WBEs), I am able to find unique items to carry in my stores - items that the P&G, ConAgra and Pepsi's of the world are not manufacturing.  Additionally, in many cases WBEs give me better pricing than their large corporate competitors and in most instances, these women owned businesses are more nimble and provide better customer service than those competitors.  CWE is my conduit to these WBEs thereby supporting my efforts to increase sales and decrease costs."