PPAI Names Denham, David, Rosin  and Tomasini As 2018 Board Officers

PPAI has selected its 2018 PPAI Board of Directors officers. They are: Dale Denham, MAS+, chair; Brittany David, CAS, chair-elect; and Danny Rosin, CAS, vice chair, financial services. Current chair Mary  Jo Tomasini, MAS, will take on the role of immediate past chair. The new board officers will begin their one-year terms immediately following The PPAI Expo 2018.

PPAI board officers are selected by the PPAI Board Officer Nominating Committee and voted on by the PPAI board. Tom Goos, MAS, immediate past chair of the board, led the nominating committee. He says, “I am extremely happy with the process and outcome of the 2018 PPAI board officers slate. We have a talented team that will help take PPAI and the industry forward in 2018 and beyond. Dale Denham is a talented industry professional and thought leader to head the board in 2018.”

Dale Denham, MAS+, is chief information officer at Lewiston, Maine-based distributor Geiger. Denham is a member of the four-person senior leadership team which sets the business direction for the firm, and is responsible for technology strategies and oversees a staff of 25. Prior to joining Geiger, Denham served as senior vice president of ASI for 10 years and was president of Impact Data for five years prior to that. He has served on several PPAI committees—Membership Services, Leadership Advisory, Government Relations Action Council and Technology, of which he was chair.

Denham originated, organized and chaired the first (and the successive) PPAI Technology Summit. He has also served  as president of Promotional Products Association of Florida and is currently a chef in PromoKitchen. He is also the organizer and leader of a non-PPAI group of distributors and suppliers working to develop industry technology standards, and he frequently speaks at PPAI, regional and industry events. Computerworld recognized him in 2015 as one of the nation’s 100 premier IT leaders for his leadership and innovative approaches to business challenges.

Brittany David, CAS, vice president of sales at supplier SnugZ USA, is an 11-year veteran of the promotional products industry. She has been with SnugZ for  six years and prior to that she was the trade-show management services manager at SAGE. David is currently serving on  the PPAI Board of Directors and is board Mary Jo Tomasini, MAS

liaison to the Technology Committee.

She previously served as board liaison  to the Suppliers Committee and Awards Committee. She is also a volunteer for the PPAF Expo and co-chaired the PPAF Expo Committee from 2014- 2016.

David’s creative firepower and engaging personality landed her on Counselor magazine’s 2013 Hot List, and she has been a panelist for the ASI Power Summit and PPAI Women’s Leadership Conference. David was named a PPB Rising Star in 2014 and a PPAI Fellow in 2017. David also volunteers for the Utah Food Bank, Primary Children’s Hospital and various community service projects with the SnugZ GiveZ community service committee.

Danny Rosin, CAS, is co-president of distributor Brand Fuel and a 26-year industry professional. He is a co-founder of PromoKitchen, past president of CAAMP, and has served with PPEF and on several PPAI committees. Rosin is also deeply invested in growing Reciprocity Road, a $200-million distributor-supplier partnership.

In his community, Rosin is the co-founder and a volunteer leader of Band Together,

an organization that raises over $1 million annually for a different nonprofit through live concert events. Additionally, he has been a speaker at PPAI’s North American Leadership Conference, Skucon and Creative Mornings, is a member of The Harvard 100 and is a board member for The American Marketing Association Triangle Chapter.

Mary Jo Tomasini, MAS, CEO of distributor CE Competitive Edge, LLC in Stevensville, Michigan, is a 30-plus-year veteran of the promotional products industry and currently chairs the PPAI board. Tomasini founded CE in 1993 and grew it into one of the largest promotional products companies in the industry. She is a member of MiPPA and serves on PPAI’s Government Relations Advisory Council (GRAC). women in business, serving as a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE).

Tomasini has worked to encourage mentor for women in Michigan starting a new business or considering Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) certification. She also currently serves on the Lake Michigan College Board of Trustees and is a past chair of the board.

Tech Summit Comes  To Austin This Summer

The PPAI Technology Summit follows NALC in Austin this year, bringing together industry IT professionals at all levels to share best practices and case studies, and to discuss critical topics such as big data, order management and more. In its fourth year, Tech Summit runs August 15-17 and like NALC, will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel Austin.

Attendees will also celebrate the recipients of the third annual Tech Summit Awards. These awards—the Internal Innovator Award and the Industry Collaborator Award—showcase and celebrate technology advances that bring success to individual companies and the industry as a whole. The Tech Summit brings together a diverse group of speakers and experts from inside the promotional products industry and beyond.

Gigaom CEO and NALC speaker Byron Reese joins Tech Summit to speak on the future of AI, while Mark Moore, a data/business intelligence evangelist with Microsoft who is based in Austin, is its opening speaker. Moore kicks off Tech Summit’s education programming with a discussion on big data—the analysis of extremely large data sets to reveal patterns, trends and associations—and its role in business today. His session looks at how big data is being used to improve sales, manufacturing and target the right customers, and how his audience can apply it at their own companies.

See the full schedule and register at www.ppai.org/techsummit.

PPAI’s Product Responsibility Summit To Explore Prop 65 And More In September

The PPAI Product Responsibility Summit offers attendees an in-depth education focused on the most-pressing business implications, challenges and opportunities associated with compliance.

The Summit, September 17-19, with a boat tour of the Port of Long Beach on September 20, brings industry thought leaders, representatives from product safety labs and leaders in compliance  to Newport Beach, California, for the latest developments and best practices.

The 2017 Summit agenda includes insights from experts in California’s Prop 65, a discussion on import surveillance and a panel of end-buyer representatives sharing their perspectives and experiences. Attendees will also take home a sourcing and compliance manual that will serve as a guide for industry companies to get their compliance programs up and running quickly and efficiently, and includes many best practices, protocols, checklists and various additional resources.

Find the complete schedule and register at www.ppai.org/summit.

PPB Wins Two Awards For Design

PPB magazine has won two awards for outstanding design: a Silver Award at the Business Marketing Association of North Carolina/South Carolina (BMA Carolinas) annual ProAd Awards and an Award of Distinction in the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts’ Annual Communicator Awards.

Both awards recognize the magazine’s visual communication, creativity and design. The Communicator Award is among the largest of its kind with more than 6,000 entries from around the world. Spark Publications of Charlotte, North Carolina, began handling PPB’s design and production late last summer, introducing a new design for PPAI’s monthly magazine with the September 2016 issue.

NALC Brings A High-Powered Speaker Lineup To Austin Next Month

In August, the 2017 PPAI North American Leadership Conference (NALC) will draw industry leaders from across the country to Austin, Texas, for three days of learning, listening, discussing and debating the issues critical in today’s business climate. Running August 13-15 at the Four Seasons Hotel, the highly anticipated event offers attendees opportunities to connect with and learn from innovators and thought leaders from a variety of fields and backgrounds.

NALC 2017 features several high-powered speakers from a broad cross-section

of industries and disciplines. The event lineup includes these magnetic presenters:

Roy Spence, founder and chairman of GSD&M Advertising, and CEO of the Purpose Institute, is NALC’s opening general session speaker. Spence’s presentation focuses on the power of purpose in business and life. He will share key insights and lessons from the leaders he’s worked up close and personal with over the years, and present actionable ideas to inform making decisions that build business success. Audience members can expect a session that explores core values and purpose, and how these affect the difference an organization makes locally, nationally and globally.

Dr. Chris Kuehl, managing director and co-founder of Armada Corporate Intelligence, joins NALC to look at the state of the economy at the midpoint of the Trump Administration’s first year in office. His session looks at some of the issues on 2017’s agenda—trade, taxes, infrastructure and health care—how progress, or the lack thereof, is affecting industry and businesses, and how to prepare for the rest of the year.

Business strategist and author Seth Kahan’s NALC session explores how organizations

can proactively prepare for the future, positioning themselves for success, and how to put this mindset and strategy to work in an organization. Part of this is in the development of what Kahan describes as a strategic foresight framework to gather and assess emerging trends for competitive advantage. This framework includes building a “brain trust,” properly scoping the effort to benefit a business, activities that collect relevant information, and processes for both analyzing and applying information gained.

James Erben, president of Erben Associates, will educate attendees on various types of exit plans from a business. His sessions at NALC look at how to successfully leave a business and succession planning, and how to bring new blood in by attracting, rewarding and retaining key executives. His August 14 session on succession planning examines many of

the issues and considerations to the alternatives of exiting a business, while on the next day, he explores designing effective retention plans that are the right fit for a business’s objectives.

Teri Hill, a speaker and business coach, is bringing her insights on influencing across generations to NALC. Each generation is motivated differently, has preferences in how to communicate and dress and which rules to abide by, and in the workplace, how management should treat them. During her session, she explains how understanding these dynamics can make communicating, building relationships, holding others accountable and delivering results much easier, and how to be more aware, adjust as needed and allow all generations to thrive.

The former vice president of BuzzFeed’s video division and current head of digital ventures at talent agency ICM Partners, Jonathan Perelman’s session at NALC looks at growing a business through shareable content. Perelman will focus on the tactics and mindset that have helped Buzzfeed, Google and others grow by using branded content and telling stories in a memorable way. With the goal of generating word-of-mouth marketing at internet scale, Perelman believes that “content is king but distribution is queen—and she wears the pants.”

Seven years ago, self-driving cars and Apple watches weren’t on anybody’s radar. What will the next seven years bring? Byron Reese, publisher and CEO of emerging technology website Gigaom, joins NALC to speak on the transformative effects of change and how to prepare for what the future brings.