Angela Rhea, Vice President of Product & Industry Consultant, with TradeBeyond recently was named a recipient of the 2026 Women in Supply Chain Forum Award in the Trailblazers category.
Presented by Supply & Demand Chain Executive and Food Logistics, the annual awards recognize female supply chain leaders whose accomplishments, mentorship, and leadership are helping shape the future of the global supply chain industry.
The Trailblazer category honors experienced women who have spent their careers driving innovation, operational excellence, and lasting change while paving the way for future generations of women in supply chain and logistics.
In an interview with Retail Insider, Rhea discusses her experience and the global supply chain.
Question: What do three decades in fashion and retail supply chains reveal about where the industry is headed?
Answer: Three decades in fashion and retail supply chains have taught me that change is constant, but the pace and complexity of change have accelerated dramatically. Earlier in my career, the primary focus was often on cost, speed, and getting products to market. Today, brands have to balance those priorities with resilience, compliance, sustainability, transparency, and now more commonly, the ability to respond to disruption in real-time.
The biggest shift I see is that supply chains are becoming less transactional and more interconnected. A retailer cannot look only at its direct supplier and assume it understands the risk associated with a product. They need to understand the network behind that supplier, including subcontractors, raw material processors, and even upstream sources.
The future belongs to organizations that can connect product, supplier, compliance, quality, and logistics information and turn it into actionable intelligence. Technology is an important part of that transformation, but the goal is not technology for its own sake. It is about giving people better information so they can make faster and better decisions.
Q: Why does supply chain resilience increasingly depend on relationships, not just technology?
A: Technology can provide visibility, but relationships determine what happens when something goes wrong. When a disruption occurs, whether it is a regulatory change, a quality issue, a capacity constraint, or a geopolitical event, retailers need suppliers that will communicate early and work collaboratively on a solution. A supplier relationship built entirely around price is much less resilient than one built around transparency, shared expectations, and continuous improvement.
That means retailers need to move from simply monitoring suppliers to actively developing them. Data can help identify which suppliers are performing well, where risks are emerging, and where additional support is needed. However, someone still has to have the conversation. The strongest supply chains combine digital visibility with human relationships. Technology helps us identify where to focus. Trust and collaboration help us actually solve the problem.
Q: How can retailers move from compliance-driven traceability to meaningful supply chain visibility?
A: The first step is changing the purpose of traceability. If the only objective is to produce documentation when an auditor or regulator asks for it, companies will always be playing catch-up.
Meaningful visibility means being able to understand what is happening across the supply network while there is still time to act. That requires connecting supplier information, product data, orders, audits, certifications, quality information, and chain-of-custody evidence rather than keeping those records in separate systems.
It also means going beyond Tier 1. Tier 1 is generally the easiest part of the supply chain to map. The real complexity often begins further upstream, particularly with raw materials and processing. At TradeBeyond’s 2026 AAFA Traceability Conference panel, we discussed how differences in production dates, units of measurement, batches, and processing stages can make upstream traceability particularly difficult.
The objective should be to create a living picture of the supply chain, not a static compliance report. When retailers have that visibility, traceability becomes useful for sourcing, risk management, supplier development, and business continuity, not just regulatory compliance.
Q: What do the latest regulatory requirements mean for sourcing and supplier relationships?
A: Regulation is fundamentally changing the conversation between brands and their suppliers. Requirements around deforestation, forced labour, human rights due diligence, product sustainability, and traceability require companies to demonstrate what happened throughout the supply chain, rather than simply make statements about their policies.
That puts more responsibility on sourcing organizations. Supplier selection can no longer be based primarily on cost, capacity, quality, and lead time. Companies also need to understand a supplier’s transparency, compliance maturity, documentation capabilities, and upstream relationships. This is especially important because regulatory requirements are becoming data requirements. A supplier may need to provide information about origin, materials, facilities, production processes, or environmental and social conditions. If that information cannot be collected, validated, and connected to the relevant product or shipment, compliance becomes extremely difficult.
The answer should not be to treat every new regulation as another isolated project. Retailers should build a scalable data and supplier-management foundation that allows them to adapt as requirements evolve and change.
Q: Why does women’s leadership matter in traditionally operational and technology- focused areas of supply chain?
A: Women have always played an important role in the supply chain, even if that contribution has not always been reflected in leadership representation. I believe diverse leadership matters because supply chains are fundamentally about people, relationships, and problem-solving. The industry is also changing from a function focused primarily on operational execution to one that requires collaboration across technology, sustainability, sourcing, compliance, finance, and corporate strategy.
Different perspectives make organizations better equipped to understand those interconnected challenges. For women entering leadership roles in supply chain and technology, I would encourage them not to feel that they need to fit an existing definition of what a supply chain leader looks like. The industry needs leaders who can bridge disciplines, ask difficult questions, and bring people together around a common objective. My own experience across fashion, retail, technology, and supply chain has reinforced that leadership is not about having every answer. It is about being willing to learn, challenge assumptions, and create an environment where other people can contribute their expertise.
Q: How are AI and emerging technologies changing the way retailers manage global supply networks?
A: AI is moving supply chain management from reactive to more predictive decision-making. There is a tendency to talk about AI as though it will automate the entire supply chain. I don’t think that is where the greatest value lies today. The more immediate opportunity is helping people process enormous amounts of information, identify patterns, and focus their attention where it matters most.
For example, AI can help extract information from supplier documents, identify inconsistencies in supplier records, flag emerging risks, analyze supplier performance, and prioritize exceptions. It can also help connect information that historically sat in separate workflows.
However, it is important to note that AI is only as valuable as the data underneath it. If supplier information is fragmented or inaccurate, AI cannot magically make the underlying supply chain visible. Retailers need connected data, clear processes, and defined ownership first. The most successful implementations will therefore combine AI with human expertise. AI can surface the signal. People still need to determine what that signal means and what action the business should take.
Q: How has ESG evolved from a reporting exercise into an operational consideration?
A: ESG is moving from the annual-reporting conversation into day-to-day supply chain decisions. For example, it is one thing to report supplier emissions or sustainability metrics. It is another to use that information when deciding where to source, which suppliers to develop, how to manage risk, or whether a product can meet future market requirements.
That shift is important because ESG information becomes much more valuable when it is connected to operational data. A retailer can start asking more meaningful questions like:
● Which suppliers are improving?
● Where are environmental or social risks concentrated?
● Which materials create the greatest impact?
● Which suppliers have the data and processes necessary to support future requirements?
Traceability is a major part of that evolution because credible ESG performance depends on knowing where products and materials come from. Connected supply chaindata can help move ESG from a reporting obligation to a decision-making tool.
Q: What should brands be doing now to prepare for Digital Product Passport and other traceability requirements?
A: Brands should start now, even though some of the detailed requirements are still being developed. The EU has identified textiles as a priority category under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. The European Commission currently anticipates adoption of the textile-specific delegated act in Q3–Q4 2027, with mandatory compliance taking effect around 2028 and implementation details to follow. Brands should use this time to establish the infrastructure rather than wait for every requirement to be finalized.
First, map the supply chain beyond Tier 1 and understand where critical product and material information originates. Second, establish common data standards so information from different suppliers and tiers can actually be connected.
Third, identify gaps in documentation, chain of custody, and supplier participation. Finally, make sure traceability and product information is connected to the sku level through a unique identifier rather than maintained as a separate compliance exercise.
The DPP is ultimately about making product information accessible and connected to the actual product throughout the product lifecycle. For textiles, that information includes product identification, fiber composition, origin, relevant economic operators, repair and maintenance information, reuse and recycling information, and other verified compliance and traceability data. The brands that will be best positioned are not necessarily those that build a system specifically for the DPP, but are the ones that build a connected supply chain data foundation capable of supporting the DPP and whatever regulatory requirements come next. The European Commission’s DPP Registry is already live as of July 2026, which is another indication that this is moving from a future concept toward practical implementation.
More from Retail Insider:
