We’re the leading industry association created to support individuals and organizations by promoting the use of independent social compliance audits.
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Find out MoreAvedis Seferian is the President & CEO of WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production). A recognized expert in the area of social compliance and responsible sourcing, he was named by Assent Compliance as one of the Top 100 Corporate Social Responsibility Influence Leaders in 2020.
Mr. Seferian has extensive knowledge of social responsibility issues within the highly complex worldwide supply chains of the apparel, textile and footwear sectors, often speaking on topics in this field at different forums around the world and contributing to many leading trade publications and news outlets.
He is the Chairman of the Executive Board of the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA), sits on the Impartiality Committees of several audit organizations and served on the Board of Advisors of the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety.
Mr. Seferian speaks five languages, holds degrees from three continents (a BA from St. Stephen’s College in India, an MBA from the American University of Armenia, and a JD from Georgetown University in Washington, DC) and is a member of the American Bar Association and the Virginia State Bar.
Barbara Gregory
Barbara Gregory is Senior Manager of Human Rights & Environment for Walmart Inc., in Bentonville, Arkansas. Barbara has spent the majority of her 20 years with the company working in the areas of Sustainability and Responsible Sourcing where she has focused on supply chain compliance, stakeholder engagement and investigations.
During her tenure, Barbara has developed significant expertise in social standards analysis and development, responsible recruitment, and indicators of forced labor. Additionally, she has gained a great deal of experience creating and delivering training on social compliance topics and has spent a number of years implementing fire safety and building safety guidelines at the factory level.
In her current role, Barbara is responsible for building and maintaining relationships with the third-party social audit programs that Walmart accepts. She engages collaboratively with them to influence enhancements in their standards, processes and protocols with the aim of positively impacting the global supply chain as a whole.
Barbara currently serves as a member of the APSCA Stakeholder Advisory Board and as a Member Director on the Sedex Board of Directors. Barbara is a 9-year member of Toastmasters International and has won a number of awards and speech contests. Originally from Joplin, Missouri, she holds a Bachelor of Education Degree and Minor in Psychology from Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas.
Craig Moss is Executive Vice President- Measurement of Ethisphere and a leading expert on using management systems to improve compliance and risk management performance within companies and across supply chains. He is responsible for developing and delivering programs designed to help companies and their supply chains measure and improve their programs on a wide range of ESG and compliance topics, including social performance, data protection, anti-corruption, DEI, and employee mental health. He has designed and led numerous programs helping Fortune 500 companies and private equity firms around the world to implement management systems to reduce supply chain risk and improve performance.
Craig is the Chair of the Licensing Executives Society committee that developed an ANSI global standard for Intellectual Property Protection in the Supply Chain. He is Director – Content & Certification at the Cyber Readiness Institute, an organization focused on improving cybersecurity in small and mid-sized businesses by focusing on human behavior. Craig is Director at the Digital Supply Chain Institute, where he developed programs to accelerate digital transformation with a unique new data trading framework and a new change management approach for the digital era.
Prior to joining Ethisphere, Craig was COO at the Center for Responsible Enterprise and Trade. While a director at Social Accountability International he co-developed the Social Fingerprint labor management maturity assessment and the TenSquared change management programs. He has published guides on implementing management systems to improve ESG and compliance for organizations including the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation and the United Nations. Previously, Craig founded Global Access Corporation, where he led more than 3,000 business development projects in 50 countries.
Linda Kromjong became President of amfori on January 1, 2022. In this capacity, she is committed to fostering positive impacts by assisting amfori’s members in comprehending and enhancing the ESG performance across their supply chains. Under her leadership, amfori’s BSCI solution continues to be a trusted and extensively adopted resource. Recognizing the crucial role of professional social auditors in maintaining the credibility of amfori BSCI, she is a strong advocate for APSCA and aligns with its strategic objectives.
Before joining amfori, Linda was the Global Labor & Human Rights Director at Samsung Electronics from October 2018 to December 2021. In this role, she played a key role in strengthening Samsung’s engagement with major international policymakers and influencers, while also supporting various departments in driving improvements across the corporate and supply chain landscape. During her tenure, she represented Samsung in the Responsible Labor Initiative (RLI) and the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Working Group on Diversity & Gender and maintained regular interactions with international institutions and civil society organizations.
Prior to her tenure at Samsung, Linda served as the Secretary-General of the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) in Geneva from May 1, 2015, to October 1, 2018. Before her work with the IOE, she was the Vice-President of Labor Relations International & Human Rights at Deutsche Post DHL. Linda began her professional journey in the Hospitality Industry with Sodexo in the Netherlands, and she brings extensive experience in senior roles encompassing general management, Human Resources, Labor Relations, and Business & Human Rights.
Laurent is Vice President, Strategic Planning at SGS and has been with the company for over 16 years, in a number of senior management roles in both Switzerland and the United States. Laurent is responsible for the strategic development and planning within the Knowledge Division covering audit, certification, training, CSR, supply chain services, risk management and technical consultancy across multiple industries. Laurent holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
SGS is the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. SGS is recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity. With more than 89,000 employees, we operate a network of more than 2,600 offices and laboratories around the world.
SGS has been executing second party assessments for over 50 years. When the emerging issues around social compliance arose in the 1990s, SGS started to supplement their second party assessments to include social issues, further expanding its portfolio to include quality, environmental, security and due diligence assessments. Having one of the largest networks of social auditors and being committed to quality and integrity, SGS is supporting APSCA with the objective to enhance the professionalism and credibility of the individuals and organizations performing independent social compliance audits.
Greg Gardner, President & CEO of ARCHE Advisors, boasts a rich and extensive career in corporate social responsibility. With a background dating back to 1995 as a social auditor in Los Angeles garment factories, Greg’s journey has taken him through over 10,000 employee interviews spanning 80+ countries. Notably, he conducted investigations in response to significant events like Kathie Lee Gifford’s involvement with child labor in Honduras in 1996 and extensive work in China since 1996.
Greg has tackled diverse challenges throughout his career, from Saipan lawsuits in 1999 to audits in Baghdad, Nepal, North Korea, Siberia, Myanmar, and beyond. He has investigated issues ranging from child labor to human trafficking and forced labor. Additionally, his work extends to auditing fishing boats and the seafood supply chain across various regions.
In 2022, he was involved in investigating child labor in slaughterhouses, reflecting his unwavering commitment to improving working conditions and reducing risks for businesses. Greg’s practical experience in the field and his global perspective have positioned him as a trusted thought leader in the industry, delivering candid feedback and pragmatic solutions to complex ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) challenges in global supply chains.
Greg Gardner’s qualifications include CSCA credentials, a BA in Political Science from San Diego State University, an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management, and an Executive Education Program in International Management from Stanford/National University of Singapore.
ARCHE Advisors
Our experts have always been at the forefront of the corporate responsibility industry. Starting as supply chain auditors in 1995 just as child labor controversies engulfed Nike and Guess, our team has been dedicated to helping brands manage the social and environmental impacts of globalized supply chains ever since.
Our experts have been credited with establishing industry-standard protocols and leading supplier compliance programs. Our roster contains published and recognized experts who are invited to speak at industry events and participate in government policy decisions.
Gabriela Lopes
Gabriela Lopes has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Porto and an MBA from Oporto Catholic University. She is the Chief Operating Officer for the International Markets of APCER, Certificação, SA, where she has been working since 2000.
She has taken on different roles since then, but it was in 2007, after attending the SA8000 training course by SAI, that she started her career in the social compliance area and, therefore, internationally.
She was directly involved in APCER’s recognition as an “Auditing Company” by amfori (formerly FTA), which strategically led APCER to incorporate a company in China. She actively participated in its establishment, development, and management. Gabriela was the BSCI Scheme Manager for more than 10 years and conducted ISO 9001, SA 8000, and BSCI audits in Portugal as a lead auditor for several years.
Currently, she promotes the definition of the internationalization strategy of APCER’s Group and its invested companies (Brazil, China, and Spain), ensuring that these strategies are well implemented. She also works with the General Managers of the invested companies in defining the annual budget, guaranteeing its fulfillment.
Her professionalism, commitment, dedication, and critical spirit have been essential in APCER’s achievements in the social compliance field and its internationalization process. She believes that social auditing, when well used, can have a true impact on changing people’s lives, and her natural interest in connecting with people from various cultures and learning from them is what drives her professionally.
Rajan Kamalanathan – Vice President for Sustainability and CSR for Bureau Veritas is based in the USA with a global mandate. Responsible for developing and managing a robust, industry leading, social, environmental and sustainability program to service the needs of suppliers, brands and retail customers.
Rajan is globally recognized as a pioneer and thought leader in supply chain sustainability.
Previously, Director of Sustainable Supply Chain for C&A based in Hong Kong, where he led C&A’s Sustainable Supply Chain (SSC) program to secure both social and environmental compliance throughout its supply chain, including developing, implementing and managing C&A’s zero discharge of hazardous chemicals (ZDHC) program.
Prior to that he was VP Ethical Sourcing for Walmart where he directed all sourcing-related ethical and social responsibility activities, including Walmart’s Code of Conduct, as well as ethical sourcing policies and procedures, and implemented a comprehensive social and environmental monitoring and capacity building programs.
In addition, Rajan was an executive board member of Global Social Compliance Program (GSCP) and was actively engaged in the development of the program to reduce audit fatigue and encourage retail and brand collaboration.
Rajan is a graduate of University of London, Kings College. He is also the recipient of the Sam Walton Entrepreneur of the Year Award – for his work on a Sustainable Supply Chain.
Bureau Veritas (BV) was founded in 1828, and today has leading positions in its eight business divisions via a network of 850 offices and laboratories and more than 140 countries with over 70,000 employees worldwide. The Consumer Products Services Division of BV (BVCPS) is a global division working with retailers and manufacturers of consumer products worldwide to assess their products and manufacturing processes for compliance with regulatory, quality, and performance requirements. BVCPS tests products, inspects goods, assesses factories, conducts social audits and trains personnel. BV’s proactive solutions throughout the supply chain help clients better manage risk, protect their brands, reduce costs, and cut time to market.
BV’s social compliance team consists of thought leaders and has substantial experience with social compliance program development services and auditing for many of the companies considered most active in the supply chain social compliance arena.
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