African American Real Estate Professionals LA, a non-profit focused on promoting diversity and inclusion in the commercial real estate industry, has announced its executive and advisory board members and has appointed new officers to its board of directors.

James Malone of JLL Los Angeles and Matthew Gates of In The Building LA have been named governing board members, and Troy S. Jenkins of Avison Young, Sherri Brewer of OneUnited Bank and Frederick White of the City of Los Angeles are advisory board members. In addition, William Yarbro of Keller Williams Commercial Inglewood, Kimberly Brown, Alicia Bramble of Brilliant Corners and Michael Tidwell of Cushman & Wakefield, will serve as the organization's officers for 2021.

While many companies have adopted diversity, equity and inclusion strategies this year, Brown highlights the importance of diversity both within a company's workforce and in suppliers—a side of diversity that is often overlooked. "DEI has become a high trending topic this year," says Brown. "Many in the industry are unaware that DEI is two-fold—workforce diversity and supplier diversity.  While there has been much focus of late on workforce and workplace diversity, the supplier diversity and marketplace initiatives have been in effect in some corporations for decades. A few have achieved $1 billion in annual spend resulting in membership into the prestigious Billion Dollar Roundtable. One example is CBRE—AAREP LA's key sponsor—which recently announced its $3 billion commitment to supplier diversity.