THE SUPPLY CHAIN INTERVIEW
beyond direct suppliers is structural accountability, not idealism. The second intervention is visibility through gender-disaggregated data across extended supply networks. The third is presence.
“ Co-design solutions with the women themselves,” Sheri says.“ Partnering, being present, listening, learning and incorporating ancestral wisdom and techniques in and across your supply chains starts locally and scales globally.”
The tension between surface-level commitment and structural change runs into a troubling pattern she has identified. Women now hold 63 % of sustainability executive positions, just as the US market is pulling back from ESG and DEI commitments.
“ This is the glass cliff, and it’ s not accidental,” she says.“ Women were elevated into sustainability leadership roles at the exact moment those roles became the most politically exposed and resource-constrained positions in corporate America. Her advice?“ Own your voice and story.“ If your entire professional identity is tied to a title that a CEO can eliminate with a press release, you’ re vulnerable.”
That vulnerability is something many workers are feeling in the era of automation. PwC’ s‘ Will Robots Really Steal Our Jobs?’ report explains manual roles in manufacturing were traditionally male-dominated, but as robots take over these tasks, the roles become more about supervising technology – potentially removing the barriers women faced to those roles, due to assumptions about physical strength.
40 %
of the supply chain workforce are women
11 %
The percentage of female CSCOs
Sheri reframes this conversation:“ The bigger, harder truth is that robotics and automation can replace human workers altogether, regardless of gender.”
The question is no longer simply whether women can access these roles. It is whether those roles will exist at all – and whether women are being positioned for the technical roles that replace them or left behind twice.
“ In a world where every company will have access to the same AI tools and data infrastructure, the competitive advantage won’ t be who has the best algorithm,” she says.“ It will be who can ask the most insightful questions, anticipate the second-order consequences and build trust across complex stakeholder networks.”
50 March 2026