Beth Ward

Beth Ward is an experienced global executive in supply chain and operations.

An authentic leader, Ward is deeply rooted in her core values. With 30 years of global supply chain experience, she serves as a catalyst and change agent at organizations that align with these values: meaningful purpose, capable teams and people-focused cultures. Recently, Ward served as COO at Smart Warehousing and SVP supply chain and corporate officer at Hallmark, successfully leading through the most tumultuous years for supply chains in modern history. Currently, she is a professor of the practice for the SELF Engineering Leadership Fellows program in the School of Engineering at KU.

Ward's duties and responsibilities include serving as an integrator to cultivate trusted relationships across silos, organize resources to achieve impactful results and communicate strategy and context to rally stakeholders around the organization's vision and mission. She listens, ask questions and advises leaders on people and business challenges. She connects with employees and gains their buy-in by consistently demonstrating credibility, courage and care. Throughout her career, Ward has honed skills to solve complex challenges, build capable teams and "make things clear" for individuals at all levels.

Ward holds a bachelor's degree in industrial and manufacturing systems engineering from Kansas State University and a master’s degree in engineering management from the University of Kansas. She has been an active community servant, currently serving as a board member for K-State Olathe. In recent years, Ward also served as vice-chair for the MoKan Goodwill board and chair of the advisory council for the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at Kansas State University. In 2025, K-State honored Ward as the College of Engineering Alumni Fellow.

Both K-State engineers, Ward's 30-year spouse, Dr. Ken Ward ('91, '93) is an associate teaching professor at KU. Their son, Ryan, is a senior at Indiana University in the Kelley School of Business.