Supply Chain Revolution

Women in supply chain and logistics do not lack talent. They lack access. Harshida Acharya, co-founder of Ladies Who Logistic, explains how to close the gap.In this episode of the Supply Chain Revolution podcast, Sheri Hinish (Supply Chain Queen) talks with Harshida Acharya, Partner and Chief Strategy Officer at Fulfillment IQ and co-founder of Ladies Who Logistic, one of the newest community partners on the Supply Chain Queen and Supply Chain Revolution platform.Harshida co-founded Ladies Who Logistic with Tori Deems and Amy Dai after the three of them kept finding themselves among the only women in decision-making rooms. When they asked on LinkedIn whether a community like this should exist, more than 130 women asked to join within a few hours. Two and a half years and 31 events later, the community has become career infrastructure rather than a networking club.You will learn why the real constraint for women in logistics is an uneven distribution of social capital, how Chatham House rules create space for the questions people cannot safely ask at work, and why a Montessori-style model that mixes early-career, mid-career, and senior leaders accelerates learning for everyone. Harshida also shares the skill that will matter most in fulfillment over the next five years, the test that separates a useful community from a performative one, and a direct ask for leaders and allies.This conversation is for women building careers in supply chain, logistics, procurement, and operations, and for the executives and allies who want to sponsor them.Chapters00:00 From networking to infrastructure: why Ladies Who Logistic exists 00:46 Meet Harshida Acharya and how Sheri and Harshida met at NY Climate Week 01:16 Fulfillment IQ, the eCom Logistics Podcast, and the origin of Ladies Who Logistic 04:06 The real gap for women in supply chain: social capital, not capability 07:20 Why authentic community beats traditional networking 08:51 The Montessori model: learning across every career stage 11:55 The skills women need in the age of AI and automation 12:29 Allies, not adversaries: the community's ethos 13:11 Staying grounded while AI changes everything 14:15 Why breadth matters: lessons from the book Range 14:53 Lightning round 16:47 Standing on the shoulders of giants 17:06 How to join Ladies Who Logistic and Harshida's ask for leaders and allies 17:56 ClosingConnectLadies Who Logistic: ladieswhologistic.com and the Ladies Who Logistic group on LinkedIn Harshida Acharya on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshida/Fulfillment IQ: fulfillmentiq.com eCom Logistics Podcast: available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Sheri Hinish, Supply Chain Queen: supplychainqueen.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/supplychainqueenYouTube (full episodes and clips): youtube.com/@supplychainqueen Instagram: instagram.com/supplychainqueenNewsletter: subscribe to The Supply Chain Revolution Newsletter at supplychainqueen.comIf this episode helped you, follow Supply Chain Revolution and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts. Ratings are the single fastest way to help other women in supply chain find the show.Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: MBXOZNDJNYNM1OGS

Supply chain was rarely in the title at New York Climate Week 2026, but it was in every answer. In this Revolution Roundtable, recorded live on LinkedIn days after the week closed, Sheri Hinish brings together three practitioners to compare notes on what they saw, what felt real, what felt performative, and what executive teams should do differently on Monday morning.Sandy Leyva, co-founder of Sustainability Decoded, is an engineer who works at the intersection of supply chain and sustainability. Wesley Herche, PhD, co-founder of Sustainability Decoded, is a former U.S. intelligence officer who now works across solar, battery storage, EV charging infrastructure, and on-site power. James George, founder of Provocative Human and a Supply Chain Revolution collaborator since 2020, spent 12 years as a Royal Navy clearance diver before moving into circular economy work with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. He now advises on critical minerals and rare earth supply chain risk in defense, aerospace, and automotive.Each panelist names the week in one word: locked in, interdependence, economics, and access. The conversation then moves to the investor who told a room to stop framing climate action as an environmental choice, the quiet disappearance of net zero, the rollback of the Chief Sustainability Officer role and its cost to technical expertise and to women in the C-suite, and whether every job is now both a technology job and a sustainability job. An audience question brings the missing Scope 3 stakeholder into the room: the small and mid-sized supplier asked to fund the transition on margins that cannot absorb it. The roundtable closes with three decisions for Monday morning: price volatility itself, put critical materials on the risk register with a named owner, and treat disruption as information. Chapter Markers:0:00 Welcome to the post-Climate Week Revolution Roundtable0:57 Introductions: Sandy Leyva, Wesley Herche, James George3:53 One word for Climate Week NYC 20266:10 "Stop telling me we're doing this for environmental reasons"8:28 Supply chain was in every answer10:03 The value was in the room, not on stage11:44 What changed: net zero fades from the agenda12:51 What felt performative: folding in the CSO role14:19 The double loss: technical expertise and women in the C-suite18:15 Is every job a technology job?21:52 Is every job a sustainability job?25:22 Audience question: the SME supplier missing from Scope 329:05 One decision for executive teams on Monday morning31:37 Final word: circularity as a resilience discipline Key Topics:Climate Week NYC 2026, supply chain, sustainability, circular economy, critical minerals, material security, energy transition, price volatility, Chief Sustainability Officer, Scope 3, SME suppliers, just transition, ESG, AI, green jobs, Sustainability Decoded, Provocative Human Connect and Learn More:Sustainability Decoded (Sandy Leyva and Wesley Herche): sustainabilitydecoded.beehiiv.comJames George (Provocative Human): linkedin.com/in/james-george-20995b75Sheri Hinish (Supply Chain Queen): supplychainqueen.com Subscribe to Supply Chain Revolution on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you listen.

This is the series finale. Across five episodes, the Circular Supply Chain Coalition series has built the system around circular supply chains: coalition architecture, trusted networks, buyer-operator alignment, enabling policy. Episode 5 asks who owns the infrastructure, who has agency, and who benefits when reverse supply chains are built.Deirdre White is CEO of Pyxera Global with nearly 40 years in supply chain development and social impact, from oil and gas localization on Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East to the Jiva program, a 10-year partnership with the John Deere Foundation in rural Rajasthan that transformed agricultural livelihoods, girls' education, and community governance. Deirdre frames community ownership as the opposite of extraction: local people building and retaining the assets that should be theirs.Nancy Charaya leads circular economy work at Pyxera Global India, with a decade of experience across tire, textile, plastics, and critical minerals value chains. Nancy built the Pride Cooperative in Guwahati, Assam, a female-led waste worker collective organizing 160 informal workers into a cooperative with collective bargaining power and shared governance. India has 4 to 5 million waste workers, up to 80 percent women working informally with zero agency. The cooperative model gives them a seat at the table.John Holm, SVP of Partnership Development at Pyxera Global, moderates and connects the five-episode arc, framing community ownership as the "Trojan horse" for circular supply chains at scale.Chapter Markers:0:00 Introduction: from enabling policy to community ownership1:05 John Holm: community benefit as the missing layer in circular supply chains2:03 Deirdre White: 40 years of supply chain localization, from Sakhalin to CSCC5:41 Jiva: 10 years with John Deere in rural Rajasthan7:08 Why the changes held two years after the program ended7:54 "Fall in love with the problem, not the solution"8:25 India's waste sector: 4-5 million workers, 90% informal, 60-80% women9:27 Pride Cooperative: 160 waste workers, collective bargaining, government access10:26 The smart dustbin story: waste worker knowledge vs. high-tech design11:21 Cooperatives in the global north: Land O'Lakes and hidden scale12:37 Community-owned business: keeping equity local in reverse supply chains14:44 Building trust: 36 person-weeks of listening in three villages16:11 Pride as a female-led cooperative: agency and collective voice17:15 Lightning round: misconceptions, capabilities, optimism19:34 Series close: the complete blueprint for a circular economyKey Topics:Community ownership, cooperatives, circular supply chains, reverse logistics, waste workers, informal economy, critical minerals, cooperative governance, Pyxera Global, CSCC, Pride Cooperative, Guwahati, MSMEs, female-led enterprise, global south innovationConnect and Learn More:Circular Supply Chain Coalition: circularsupplychain.orgPyxera Global: pyxeraglobal.orgJohn Holm: [email protected] White: linkedin.com/in/deirdre-whiteNancy Charaya: linkedin.com/in/nancycharayaSheri Hinish (Supply Chain Queen): supplychainqueen.comPlease subscribe and follow

Circular supply chains do not scale on corporate pilots alone. They require enabling policy: state-level incentives, workforce alignment, environmental regulation, capital pathways, and cross-border investment structures that make reuse-based business models viable. This is episode four of a five-part series with Pyxera Global and the Circular Supply Chain Coalition, exploring what the enabling environment looks like when policy moves from aspiration to implementation.Secretary James Kenney leads the New Mexico Environment Department, where he has built one of the most ambitious state-level circular economy strategies in the US. Under Governor Lujan Grisham, New Mexico offers free education from pre-K through university and trade school, universal child care, a 50-year water action plan backed by $400 million in annual investment, and PFAS legislation that listed discarded PFAS as hazardous waste with a consumer-facing label accessible to every New Mexican. The department created economic development positions whose only metric is jobs created and net income generated.Manuel Carmona Yebra is Deputy Head for Global Issues and Innovation at the EU Delegation to the United States. He has led EU-US circular economy engagement at the state level, engaging governors including Governor Wes Moore (Maryland), Governor Hobbs (Arizona), and Governor Lujan Grisham (New Mexico). His work has revealed that circular economy is bipartisan because it addresses economic development, environmental protection, employment, and supply chain security simultaneously.John Holm, SVP of Partnership Development at Pyxera Global and CSCC representative, frames the enabling environment strategy and explains why the coalition focuses on governor-level alignment rather than federal solutions. Together they unpack why states are laboratories for policy that scales and why the EU Circular Economy Act is expected to require 25% of critical minerals supply from recycling.Chapters:0:00 Introduction: the enabling environment1:00 John Holm: enabling environment in practice1:33 Security economy framing2:38 Why CSCC focuses on states and governors3:42 Secretary Kenney: New Mexico's model4:45 Free education, child care, workforce transition5:46 50-year water action plan6:19 Waste to marketplace: critical minerals7:48 PFAS legislation and the consumer label9:25 Consumer access to information about PFAS10:08 Secretary Kenney on trade association lawsuits11:12 EU Circular Economy Act and competitiveness12:26 25% of EU critical minerals from recycling13:04 EU-US state engagement14:18 Why the EU engages US states directly15:04 Circular economy as bipartisan17:48 Replicability and interstate symbiosis19:55 Sovereign supply chains, Mexico border corridor21:01 How to engageTopics: Circular economy policy, PFAS, EU Circular Economy Act, critical minerals, economic development, workforce transition, bipartisan policy, reverse supply chainConnect:New Mexico Environment Department: env.nm.govManuel Carmona Yebra: linkedin.com/in/manoloCSCC: circularsupplychain.orgPyxera Global: pyxeraglobal.orgJohn Holm: [email protected] Chain Queen: supplychainqueen.comSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you listen.

This is episode three of a five-part series produced in partnership with Pyxera Global and the Circular Supply Chain Coalition. Recovering a material is only the beginning. For circular supply chains to scale, operators must understand what buyers can qualify and use, while buyers must create credible demand signals and procurement pathways for secondary materials. This episode covers the matchmaking layer: how the CSCC connects reverse supply chain operators with industrial buyers.Ryan Melsert is the co-founder and CTO of American Battery Technology Company (ABTC), which operates a battery recycling facility selling approximately one thousand tons per month of critical minerals back into the market. Ryan's career spans Tesla (where he helped design and build the first gigafactory) and the company is now BASF's exclusive battery recycling partner for all of North America. Rafael Vasquez Lombardo leads sustainability strategy and customer solutions at Cummins, a 100+ year industrial manufacturer with global remanufacturing operations. Anita Schwartz returns as CSCC co-founder.Together they unpack what it takes to move from collecting battery feedstock to producing materials that industrial buyers can evaluate, qualify, and integrate into established supply chains. Rafael outlines the performance-cost-trust triangle that governs sourcing decisions at scale, and Ryan explains why the qualification process will never get shorter (consumers demand zero tolerance for component failure). They close with a lightning round where Rafael delivers the episode's defining line: stop talking about circular sourcing, this is just sourcing.Chapter Markers:0:05 Introduction: buyer-operator matchmaking in reverse supply chains1:19 Meet Anita Schwartz (CSCC co-founder)2:06 Meet Ryan Melsert (ABTC): Tesla, gigafactory, battery recycling3:47 Meet Rafael Vasquez Lombardo (Cummins): engineering to circular economy strategy6:33 From convening to active matchmaking: what changes7:50 Operator perspective: from feedstock to buyer-ready supply9:10 BASF partnership: becoming their exclusive North American battery recycling partner10:51 Buyer perspective from Cummins: performance, cost, trust15:04 After the introduction: what happens day-to-day16:59 Data exchanges, audits, and the high-trust environment17:33 Validation steps from pilot to production20:07 Lightning round: what to stop, what data matters, optimismKey Topics: Reverse supply chain, buyer-operator matchmaking, battery recycling, critical minerals, Cummins, ABTC, BASF, circular procurement, secondary materials, supply chain qualification, remanufacturing, performance specs, supply chain trust, CSCC, Pyxera GlobalConnect and Learn More:American Battery Technology Company: americanbatterytechnology.comCummins: cummins.comCSCC: circularsupplychain.orgPyxera Global: pyxeraglobal.orgSheri Hinish: supplychainqueen.com