Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

Founder & CEO, Let's Talk Supply Chain™

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey is a supply chain media entrepreneur, best-selling author, and one of the most recognized voices in global logistics — the founder and CEO of Let's Talk Supply Chain™, a media platform that has grown to connect over 1.5 million supply chain professionals worldwide. Named a Top 100 Most Influential Women Leader in Supply Chain globally and a Top 100 Most Influential Women in Canadian Supply Chain by the Supply Chain Management Association (SCMA), Sarah built her platform not from a position of comfort or credential, but from the rubble of professional collapse, personal reinvention, and hard-won self-discovery. Sarah grew up immersed in supply chain at the literal dinner table — her family ran Ice Corp Logistics, a freight forwarding business just outside Toronto, Canada. She went straight from high school into the family company, working her way up through reception, operations, and sales until she held the title of Director of Sales and Marketing. She spent two decades inside that world, becoming fluent in a language that most people didn't even realize they were speaking — until COVID supply shocks made global headlines. Then, in late 2017, the family business closed its doors. Ten days before her 37th birthday, the career she had spent her entire adult life building was gone. The plan was gone. And, as she has shared candidly, so was her sense of identity. What followed was a year that most people would keep hidden. Sarah struggled to land interviews. She took two part-time jobs to stay afloat — including mopping floors at a tennis club. But while she was navigating rock bottom, she was also honoring a quiet commitment: she had started a podcast in 2016, and by the time the company closed, companies were paying to appear on it. She kept recording out of obligation to them. That obligation became a lifeline. What began as the scrappy podcast '2 Babes Talk Supply Chain' was rebranded in April 2018 to Let's Talk Supply Chain™ — after she realized no woman would come on a show with that name — and the rest became supply chain media history. Let's Talk Supply Chain™ is now one of the top 1% most downloaded podcasts globally, with 450+ episodes, 300,000+ listeners, and 50 million supply chain professionals reached. Beyond the flagship show, Sarah hosts Women in Supply Chain™ — a series dedicated to amplifying female voices in a historically male-dominated industry — and Blended, a DEI-focused podcast and companion nonprofit (the Blended Pledge) that gathers people from different walks of life to have the conversations most rooms are afraid to have. She also founded the Secret Society of Supply Chain, the industry's largest private professional network. Sarah is a Forbes Business Council contributor and a FITT (Forum for International Trade Training) board director, and she co-founded Shipz, a digital platform designed to bring freight forwarders and shippers together in a collaborative ecosystem. The throughline in every venture Sarah has built is the same: creating safe spaces where underrepresented voices can be seen, heard, and understood. She has spoken on stages around the world — a remarkable fact given that she once had a lifelong terror of public speaking so severe that the idea of joining Toastmasters made her hands sweat. Her solution was characteristically extreme: she hired a talent agent, walked into auditions, got yelled out of rooms for being unable to memorize lines, and kept going. She ended up on live television twice. The fear didn't disappear — it just stopped being in charge. In October 2025, Sarah published her debut memoir, *I Buried Her in a French Press: A Memoir About Finding My Voice and the Power of Being Heard* — which immediately became an Amazon #1 Best Seller. The book is at once a deeply personal account of identity, loss, and rebuilding, and a universal guide to discovering the superpower hidden inside the struggle. It tells the story of a woman who lost everything and found, in that loss, the exact thing she needed to build something that would outlast it. For Sarah Barnes-Humphrey, the supply chain has always been about more than freight — it's about what it takes to keep moving when the system breaks down.

Key Insights from Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

I kept it going out of obligation just to keep myself busy. I had obligation to those folks who had paid to come on the show. And so that's kind of what kept me up — or got me up in the morning.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey on The obligation that became a media empire

It was 10 days before my 37th birthday.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey on The moment of collapse and what it means to lose everything

Every step is towards something that is going to change your life in some way or another. And you might not see it right away. You might see it down the road. But I think you're right. I think movement and momentum really matters. If you start getting stuck and you start stopping, that's when you start getting into your head.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey on Movement, momentum, and the psychology of rebuilding

My hands got sweaty every time I thought about going to Toast Masters. So I got a talent agent and I went on auditions and I got yelled at out of audition rooms — but it was okay because I didn't want to be an actress. I really just needed to get out of my own way.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey on Facing fear with radical exposure instead of incremental comfort

When I stop the record button and I hear somebody say, 'Thank you. I felt seen and heard today.' Then I did my job.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey on What 'safe space' really means — and how to measure it

A lot of people get caught up in: I don't want to know because I'm going to say the wrong thing and I know I'm going to say the wrong thing and so therefore that's a full stop for me. And I think what we miss is the art of communication and the conversations that we can have.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey on Why inclusion conversations fail — and how to fix it

Most people who are in supply chain don't actually realize they're in supply chain. Until 2019, 2020, when the world realized — oh, supply chain's important — when we can't get stuff from over there.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey on The supply chain visibility gap — and why it matters

We have to take each day separately. Today I could be at 100%, tomorrow my 100% could be 40%. But it's okay — instead of beating myself up over it, it's sort of that awareness to go: 'Wait a second. That's who I am today and that's got to be okay.'

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey on Self-worth, self-compassion, and the variable standard of showing up

Notable Quotes from Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

It was 10 days before my 37th birthday. Gone. Boom.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

When I stop the record button and I hear somebody say, 'Thank you. I felt seen and heard today.' — then I did my job.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

I really just needed to get out of my own way.

— Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

Frequently Asked Questions about Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

What is Let's Talk Supply Chain and why did Sarah build it?

Let's Talk Supply Chain™ (LTSC) is a global supply chain media platform founded by Sarah Barnes-Humphrey that connects over 1.5 million supply chain professionals worldwide through podcasts, live shows, news content, and community programming. Sarah launched the podcast in 2016 while still working in her family's freight forwarding business — initially as a creative outlet to explore the industry she loved. When the family business collapsed in late 2017, the show became a lifeline: she kept recording because companies had paid to appear, and that obligation gave her a reason to get up in the morning. What began as a scrappy solo podcast called '2 Babes Talk Supply Chain' was rebranded in April 2018 to Let's Talk Supply Chain™. Today it is one of the top 1% most downloaded podcasts globally, with 450+ episodes, 300K+ listeners, and a reach of over 50 million supply chain professionals.

How did Sarah Barnes-Humphrey go from mopping floors to building a media empire?

After the family business closed in late 2017, Sarah spent a year struggling to land interviews in a male-dominated industry where she often found herself one of only three women at any given conference. She took two part-time jobs to survive — one of which was mopping floors at a tennis club. But she never stopped building. She had started the podcast before the collapse, and she continued recording it out of obligation to sponsors who had paid to appear. That commitment — not a grand strategic vision — became the bridge. She rebranded the show in 2018, leaned into content creation as her primary vehicle, and built LTSC into a platform that would eventually reach millions. Her story is less about a pivot and more about what happens when someone refuses to abandon the one thing they were still doing even when everything else fell apart.

What is the Blended podcast and the Blended Pledge nonprofit?

Blended is a podcast Sarah founded in 2021 that brings together five people from different walks of life — strangers who have never met each other and often have never met Sarah — to have honest, unscripted conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. The format is audio-only, without video, specifically because people become 'squirrely' around sensitive topics when they can be seen. Each episode opens with a question Sarah asks all guests: 'How do you identify?' — and the answer is entirely up to the guest, which itself reframes what identity conversation can look like. The Blended Pledge is the companion nonprofit, which exists to make the mission of creating space for underrepresented voices into a tangible organizational commitment. Sarah considers this work — alongside Let's Talk Supply Chain™ and Women in Supply Chain™ — part of a single coherent mission: creating safe spaces where people feel seen and heard.

What is Sarah's book about and why is the title so unusual?

Sarah's debut memoir, *I Buried Her in a French Press: A Memoir About Finding My Voice and the Power of Being Heard*, was published in October 2025 and became an Amazon #1 Best Seller. The title is not a metaphor — it refers to a real event Sarah describes in the book: during the COVID pandemic, her grandmother passed away in the UK while Sarah was in Canada. She flew over under quarantine restrictions, had only 20 minutes before the burial, and discovered that her grandmother's ashes were in a plastic bag in a white paper box — because the niece in charge had cleared the house before Sarah arrived. Searching through the only untouched cupboard, Sarah found a brand-new French press with a receipt from 1992, and used it as an urn. The book uses that story as an entry point into a broader memoir about identity, resilience, self-worth, and finding — and losing, and finding again — your voice. It is Sarah's most personal work and the fullest account of everything she went through before and after building Let's Talk Supply Chain™.

How did Sarah overcome her fear of public speaking?

Sarah has described a lifelong terror of public speaking so acute that even thinking about joining Toastmasters made her hands sweat. Her solution was characteristic of how she approaches fear: she didn't take the gentle path. She hired a talent agent and started going on acting auditions — with no intention of becoming an actress. She got yelled out of audition rooms repeatedly because she couldn't memorize lines. But that wasn't the point. The point, as she explains it, was to get out of her own way. By throwing herself into a high-stakes, high-rejection environment where no one expected her to succeed, she removed the pressure of performance and simply learned to survive being in the room. She eventually appeared on live television twice. Today she speaks at global conferences and has appeared on stage four times at a single event. The fear didn't disappear — she just stopped letting it be the deciding vote.

What awards and recognitions has Sarah Barnes-Humphrey received?

Sarah has been named a Top 100 Most Influential Women Leader in Supply Chain globally (by B2G) and a Top 100 Most Influential Women in Canadian Supply Chain by the Supply Chain Management Association (SCMA). She was recognized as a Pros to Know 2024 honoree by Supply & Demand Chain Executive and named a Top 10 Supply Chain Influencer by Supply Chain Digital in October 2024. Her memoir, *I Buried Her in a French Press*, became an Amazon #1 Best Seller upon its October 2025 release. She is a member of the Forbes Business Council (contributing since January 2025), a board director at FITT (Forum for International Trade Training), and a past recipient of the Women in Supply Chain award from Supply & Demand Chain Executive. She has also been featured as one of the 10 Most Admired Women by Success Pitchers.

Interview with Sarah Barnes-Humphrey — Topics Covered

  1. Center Stage introduction — she lost everything and mopped floors (~3 minutes)
  2. The moment of collapse — 10 days before her 37th birthday (~4 minutes)
  3. 25 years in supply chain — a male-dominated world (~4 minutes)
  4. The last mile, the first mile, and what supply chain really is (~5 minutes)
  5. I Buried Her in a French Press — the book, the title, the grandmother story (~5 minutes)
  6. Movement creates momentum — the philosophy of the rebuild (~4 minutes)
  7. Safe space, Blended, and the art of inclusion conversation (~5 minutes)
  8. Conquering public speaking — the talent agent gambit (~3 minutes)
  9. Closing — where to find Sarah, the book plug, and the connection offer (~2 minutes)

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey — Areas of Expertise

  • Supply chain media, podcasting, and content entrepreneurship
  • Freight forwarding and logistics operations (first and last mile)
  • Women in supply chain and gender equity in logistics
  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace (DEI)
  • Professional reinvention and career resilience
  • Self-worth, identity, and mental health in the workplace
  • Safe space facilitation and inclusive conversation design
  • Supply chain visibility and global trade disruption
  • Community building and professional network development
  • Entrepreneurship and media brand building
  • Public speaking and overcoming fear through radical exposure
  • Memoir writing and authentic leadership storytelling

Watch: She Lost Everything & Mopped Floors to Survive

Full Center Stage interview with Sarah Barnes-Humphrey on Mornings in the Lab.

Watch on YouTube

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey — Show Appearances

  • Mornings in the Lab (2026-02-26)

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey — Signal Brief

Signal Score: 66/100

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