Vinnie Johnson went from a clutch player for the championship Detroit Pistons to owner of one of the biggest Black-owned auto suppliers in the U.S. Now, the entrepreneur says he’s at risk of losing up to $2.5 billion in contracts because his company’s executive ranks are too White.
The Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council stripped Johnson’s company, Piston Group LLC, of its “minority” status, a designation that gave him a foot in the door of global automakers, which award lucrative supply-chain contracts to companies that are owned by and hire people of color.
The MMSDC, as the nonprofit is known, decertified the Piston Group in February after ...