AT&T Selected as the No. 1 Organization for Multicultural Business Opportunities

Company Receives Top Honor from DiversityBusiness.com for Third Consecutive Year for Outstanding Support of Women- and Minority-Owned Businesses.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced that the company has been ranked No. 1 among DiversityBusiness.com’s 2008 list of the Top Organizations for Multicultural Business Opportunities, also known as the Div50.

This is the third straight year AT&T has topped the list; the company has been included in the overall list every year since its inception nine years ago. AT&T will be honored at a special awards ceremony at DiversityBusiness.com’s Multicultural Business Conference in late April.

This year’s Div50 was selected with help from more than 650,000 minority- and women-owned businesses in the U.S. that represent sectors such as technology, manufacturing, food service and professional services. The award is based on such factors as the volume, consistency and quality of business opportunities that a company grants to women- and minority-owned suppliers. It is a leading indicator of which organizations provide the best and the most business for diversity-owned companies. The list is produced annually by DiversityBusiness.com, the nation’s leading multicultural business-to-business (B-to-B) Web site that links large organizational buyers to multicultural product and service suppliers.

“AT&T’s commitment to diversity is and will always be part of the way we choose to do business,” said Tim Harden, president of Supply Chain and Fleet Operations for AT&T Services, Inc. “We understand that we have to be reflective of our diverse customer base and employee base to deliver the best products and services. We’re honored to receive this recognition for the third consecutive year and look forward to continuing our legacy of strengthening our supply chain by fully including minority-, women- and disabled veteran-owned business enterprises. They bring us better business solutions for our customers and help make us a better company.”

In 2008, AT&T received other honors for the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, including:

* Being ranked among DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Supplier Diversity based on the company’s solid reputation for pioneering and implementing supplier diversity best practices.
* Being named as one of America’s Top Corporations for Women Business Enterprises by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council every year since the list has been published.
* Inclusion among Black Enterprise magazine’s 40 Best Companies for Diversity based on its commitment to diversity in the areas of supplier diversity, senior management, board of directors and employee base.
* Being ranked No. 1 on the Diversity Elite 60 list of top companies for Hispanics, by Hispanic Business magazine.
* Being named Company of the Year by LATINA Style for best meeting the workplace needs deemed most important by LATINA Style’s Hispanic female readers.
* Receiving the UMAP Award from the National Association of Regulated Utility Commissioners (NARUC) for being a leader in the Utility Marketplace Access Partnership, which promotes increased contracting opportunities for diversity-owned businesses.
* Inclusion among DiversityInc’s Top 10 Companies for Supplier Diversity for the company’s leadership in supplier diversity spending and development.

Just last year, the company celebrated 40 years of supplier diversity excellence. Established in 1968, its supplier diversity programs are designed to promote, increase and improve the quality of the overall participation of minority-, women- and disabled veteran-owned business enterprises in the supply chain. The supplier diversity leadership has helped launch several best practices for supply chain inclusion. In 1989, the company was one of the first to implement a formalized second-tier program, which has been effective in broadening the spectrum of opportunities for diverse suppliers within telecommunications and other industries.

AT&T is a member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable, a supplier diversity think tank of corporations that spends more than $1 billion annually with diverse companies. Only 15 member companies qualify at this level. Supplier diversity is a critical initiative of the company’s business strategy and a key component of its plan to deliver the best products and services to its customers. In 2007, the company spent $5 billion with diverse suppliers, representing more than 12 percent of its procurement base.