Worldly Appoints Former Walmart Exec as VP, Human Rights Risk Solutions

Worldly, a sustainability data and analytics solutions provider, appointed Kathryn Smith as VP of Human Rights Risk Solutions, leading its social compliance and human rights strategy. Most recently, Smith served as senior director, Responsible Sourcing, Human Rights and Environment at Walmart.

In her new role, Smith has end-to-end responsibility for the company’s social compliance offerings, including the Higg Facility Social and Labor Module, part of Cascale’s Higg Index, developed in collaboration with Worldly, social capabilities within Worldly Axion and the platform’s expansion into solutions built for sourcing and buying teams. Smith will work across product, engineering, sales, marketing, and customer teams.

“Sourcing and buying teams have been making important purchasing decisions with fragmented, limited social data for too long,” said Smith. “The current and upcoming regulations are forcing the issue, but the companies that get ahead of this will have a real competitive advantage, not just a compliance checkbox. Worldly is uniquely positioned to bring environmental and social data together in a way that actually works for the people who make buying decisions. That’s what drew me here.”

At Walmart, Smith led global standards and controls programs across responsible sourcing, product safety, and consumer protection compliance, and strengthened governance frameworks across U.S. and international markets. She led the human rights and environment strategies for Walmart’s global Responsible Sourcing Program. As part of this role, she focused on centralizing data to give compliance and buying teams real-time access to social and environmental data to make buying decisions and work with suppliers to improve global supply chains. She also advanced racial equity initiatives within Walmart’s global governance organization.

“Kathryn has spent her career sitting exactly where our customers sit — accountable for outcomes across sourcing, risk and human rights at one of the world’s most complex supply chain operations,” said Kevin Vranes, chief product officer at Worldly. “That experience will directly shape how we build social solutions that work for the teams who need them most.”

Images courtesy Worldly