Spotlights & Successes

Brenda Baney calls herself “the queen of AIAG’s IMDS Conference” — after 10 years of co-moderating the OEM-Supplier Panel at the event and 20 years as an AIAG volunteer, she’s earned it. “There’s a couple hundred people at that event every year, and 100 of them know me personally,” she says. 

“I enjoy helping to steer a critical, leading industry in the sustainability space,” she says. “Automotive blazes the trail. It is the benchmark, the North Star, for so many other industries.”

Baney has had many stand-out experiences in her two decades of volunteering. When the Dodd-Frank conflict minerals law took effect in 2010, Baney was on the early AIAG workgroup discussions with OEMs asking for full sourcing information on a component-by-component basis so that they could “map their supply chain.” After several heated debates, AIAG volunteers worked with an IT provider to create one of the first reporting platforms used by the industry.

“This effort helped standardize the form and necessary flow down and back up the supply chain for companies to obtain actual smelter purchasing data, which allowed us to put pressure on the trouble spots,” she says. “AIAG committees have helped develop many common practices that are the envy of other industries.”

Baney urges new volunteers not to be afraid to add their voice to a workgroup. “You’ll expand your network and discover best practices,” she says. “Volunteering is how to get your great idea into the hands of your suppliers and customers and make a positive impact in the industry.”