Before the title came the classroom, and before the classroom came three urban high schools and a fellowship. The path connecting those early experiences to a fashion company is unconventional, but it reveals how sustainability can move from educational projects into the systems that govern an organization.
It leads to Kathleen Talbot, today Chief Sustainability Officer and Vice President of Operations at Reformation.
She joined Reformation in 2014, initially in an administrative role, and her responsibilities grew to encompass both sustainability and business operations. The two disciplines have remained closely connected throughout her career at the company.
The Climb at Reformation
Kathleen initially joined Reformation as an office manager, but within months she had taken on broader operational responsibilities, including budgets and key business decisions. She subsequently served as Director of Operations & Sustainability, followed by VP Operations & Sustainability, before becoming Chief Sustainability Officer & VP Operations in December 2019.
The progression reflects more than a series of promotions. Rather than keeping sustainability separate from the business, Reformation built it into the operational responsibilities she helped oversee. Factory operations, supply-chain decisions, and environmental commitments became interconnected parts of the same role.
What the Role Covers
Speaker biographies published by industry event organizers describe Kathleen’s original mandate as building a sustainable and scalable supply chain, alongside a framework for incorporating sustainability into business practices.
Today, she spearheads sustainability initiatives across Reformation’s global supply chain. These include the company’s goal of becoming Circular by 2030, as well as the development of fiber-traceability technology for its denim.
Reformation had also committed to becoming Climate Positive by 2025. In April 2026, the company announced that it had achieved this goal, defining climate positivity as reducing its footprint in line with its climate commitments while removing more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits. The announcement came after the target year, rather than in 2025 itself.
The company’s sustainability reporting offers another indication of how it approaches accountability. Reformation published its first Sustainability Report in 2017 and has continued reporting on its progress regularly since then. Its approach connects environmental goals with public updates on the decisions and changes intended to achieve them.
Her remit extends beyond sustainability strategy. Her responsibilities have included oversight of factory operations and the Customer Love team, alongside customer-facing campaigns and services designed to help consumers understand fashion’s impact on people and the planet. These initiatives seek to translate environmental concerns into practical choices that customers can adopt.
Operations was not, by her own account, the original plan. “I really fell into operations,” she told Bustle. She had entered the company in an administrative capacity, expecting eventually to return to sustainability work full-time. Instead, the opportunity to integrate sustainability into daily business decisions led her toward a broader operational role. She continues to oversee the company’s factory and facilities.
Kathleen has described sustainability as a relatively new professional field when she entered Reformation, and she has spoken about the importance of learning while helping define what the discipline would mean for the company over the long term. Her academic grounding in sustainability gave her a foundation, but translating that knowledge into operational practice required a different kind of work.
Learning in the Field
The earliest chapter in Kathleen’s career was academic, but it was practical from the beginning. She holds a Master of Arts in Sustainability from Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability. Between June 2011 and June 2012, she participated in the National Science Foundation’s GK-12 Sustainability Science for Sustainable Schools fellowship at the Global Institute of Sustainability in Tempe, Arizona.
During this period, she consulted with three urban high schools on developing and implementing sustainability projects at the campus, curriculum, and community levels. She also coordinated and supervised student-led community-engagement initiatives in four areas: sustainable food and health, transportation and energy, elementary education, and urban vibrancy.
The work required her to connect students, educators, and community partners around projects that could be put into practice rather than left as classroom exercises. She established and maintained the partnerships needed to support these initiatives, while also managing the National Science Foundation grant account and preparing quarterly and annual reports.
Building an Office From Nothing
In August 2012, Kathleen moved to Marymount California University in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, as Sustainability Officer, a position she held until May 2014. She became the inaugural director of the university’s Office of Sustainability, charged with establishing a program that would make sustainability a more integral part of campus life.
She worked across curricular and co-curricular departments, Facilities, budgeting, and planning. Her responsibilities included developing and evaluating initiatives, engaging university-wide stakeholders, and helping decision-makers identify and implement best practices.
With the Facilities team, she spearheaded initiatives to improve resource efficiency and promote sustainable construction and building operations. She also created opportunities for students and employees to participate in sustainability programs, connecting campus infrastructure with everyday behavior and institutional priorities.
The Discipline of Measurement
Making sustainability part of an institution also meant determining how to measure progress. Kathleen benchmarked and reported on campus sustainability efforts, overseeing data collection and analysis for the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) and other project-specific assessment tools.
She developed and taught sustainability courses, mentored sustainability-themed student research, and recruited, hired, and supervised student employees and interns. She also served as Chair of the Sustainability Work Group.
Alongside these educational and assessment responsibilities, she managed departmental budgets and grants. The role required her to connect sustainability ambitions with the administrative structures, financial resources, and accountability mechanisms needed to sustain them.
What the Record Shows
The transitions between Kathleen’s early roles were close. Her fellowship ended in June 2012, the university position began in August that year, and she joined Reformation in May 2014, the same month her university tenure ended.
Read together, these experiences form a clear progression. The fellowship introduced her to sustainability projects within schools and communities. Marymount gave her the opportunity to establish an institutional program spanning facilities, education, budgeting, and measurement. Reformation presented the same fundamental challenge at the scale of a fashion business: making sustainability part of how work gets done, rather than an initiative operating alongside it.
Kathleen represents the operational side of sustainable fashion. Her work illustrates how environmental commitments become meaningful when they are translated into supply-chain decisions, factory practices, measurable goals, and the daily mechanics of a business.
Read more : The Top 10 Visionary Leaders in Sustainable Design of 2026
