As enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) continues to intensify, importers face growing pressure to demonstrate where products come from, how they were made, and whether their supply chains can withstand regulatory scrutiny. At the same time, companies must navigate an expanding patchwork of forced labor, human rights, and supply chain due diligence requirements from governments around the world. For many organizations, the challenge is not a lack of data. It is determining which data actually matters.
Join Todd R. Smith, Founder and CEO of KYG Trade, for a practical, hands-on clinic focused on how apparel importers can launch a high-impact supplier traceability program without the cost and complexity of mapping an entire global supply chain. Drawing on lessons learned from real-world traceability initiatives and forced labor compliance projects, attendees will learn how to build product-level traceability records that support UFLPA readiness, CBP inquiries, detention responses, supplier due diligence, and broader compliance obligations.
The session will demonstrate why a product-focused traceability strategy is often more practical and actionable than attempting to build a complete end-to-end supply chain map. Using AI-assisted document analysis and human trade compliance expertise, organizations can connect purchase orders, invoices, bills of lading, manufacturing records, certificates of origin, supplier attestations, and other evidence into a defensible chain of custody for specific products and sourcing programs. The result is greater visibility into supply chain risks, faster identification of documentation gaps, and a repeatable process that can be scaled across suppliers and product lines.
Rather than drowning in supplier data, importers will learn how to focus on the evidence that regulators, auditors, customers, and business partners actually expect to see, creating traceability programs that are affordable, sustainable, and operationally realistic.
Attendees Will Learn:
- Why product-level traceability is often more effective than comprehensive supply chain mapping
- What CBP expects when evaluating UFLPA and forced labor-related documentation
- How to build a defensible chain of custody using existing supplier and commercial records
- How to identify missing documentation before it becomes a detention, audit, or enforcement issue
- How AI-assisted traceability tools can reduce the manual effort required to review and organize thousands of supplier documents
- How to create a repeatable traceability process that scales across suppliers, sourcing regions, and product categories
- How traceability programs can support not only CBP and UFLPA requirements, but also broader global forced labor, human rights, and supply chain due diligence expectations
Speaker:
Todd R. Smith, LCB Founder & CEO, KYG Trade
Todd R. Smith, LCB, is the Founder and CEO of KYG Trade, an AI-native global trade and tariff management platform recognized as a 2025 Gartner® Cool Vendor™. Launched in 2021, KYG Trade unifies HS classification, tariff analytics, export controls, forced labor compliance, and FTA qualification in one enterprise-grade SaaS platform built to be accessible for businesses of every size.
Smith brings rare depth to the role — 18 years as a trade and customs partner at Big 4 firms EY and KPMG, advising Fortune 50 companies and presenting multiple times before the WCO Technical Committee on Customs Valuation in Brussels. He is an inventor on three patent applications for global trade management systems and previously co-founded and led a venture-backed startup to a successful acquisition.
Beyond KYG Trade, Smith co-chairs the OriginBX OASIS Open Project, a nonprofit open-source product attribute standard backed by global brands, customs authorities, and policy organizations including the WTO and the International Chamber of Commerce.