The 2025 skummunity Award Winners

The skummunity awards were created to honor the explorers, rule-breakers, dreamers, and innovators in the branded merchandise industry. At the live skucon virtual event on January 12th, five recipients were recognized for their radical leadership and generosity:

The Distributor Community Champion Award recognizes a distributor who gives selflessly, shares their ideas freely, offers a creative idea, a lending hand, always ready with a smile and a solution. They exemplify the standards of the modern entrepreneur: Be human, help others, and believe in the power of giving, and this year’s honoree was Sarah Whitaker with The Branded Things!

Distributor Community Champion: Sarah Whitaker with The Branded Things

Distributor Community Champion: Sarah Whitaker with The Branded Things

Distributor Community Champion: Sarah Whitaker with The Branded Things

The Supplier Community Champion Award was awarded to Storm Creek for inspiring the industry with optimism and ambition and rising to encourage and support both distributors and fellow suppliers. Accepting the award at skucon was CEO and Founder, Doug Jackson. 

Supplier Community Champion: Doug Jackson, Storm Creek

Supplier Community Champion: Doug Jackson, Storm Creek

The Supplier Connected Workflow Award was awarded to Cutter & Buck for their incredible integration of EPOs creating a seamless experience, faster and more accurate orders, and a simpler life for commonsku customers. Accepting the award at skucon were Jamie Trowbridge, Director of National Sales and Juan Sanchez, Business Development Manager.

Supplier Connected Workflow: The Cutter & Buck team, accepting the award were Jamie Trowbridge and Juan Sanchez

Supplier Connected Workflow: The Cutter & Buck team, accepting the award were Jamie Trowbridge and Juan Sanchez

Supplier Connected Workflow: The Cutter & Buck team, accepting the award were Jamie Trowbridge and Juan Sanchez

The Shops Innovation Leader Award was awarded to Kelli Rosenfeld with Blue Rose Promotions for driving sales growth through the creative use of e-commerce shops for their clients.

The Distributor Entrepreneur of the Year award is all about grit, hustle, perseverance, pesilience and creativity. From adversity to breakthrough, this distributor embodies today’s modern, entrepreneurial spirit and whose growth journey inspires us all to reach deep and go big and this year’s award was given to Josh and Rachel Kozinski at Sky High Marketing for their astounding growth and incredible leadership.

A big congrats to all our winners and a special thanks to Tom Warkel and the team at Crystal D for their beautiful work creating these awards!