Episode 348: Three CEOs, Billions in Revenue, One Stage (skucamp 2025)

They're running companies worth billions, managing thousands of employees, and making decisions that ripple through the entire promotional products ecosystem. Yet these CEOs still personally walk factory floors, answer customer calls at 10 PM, and sometimes can't tell if managing their kids or managing tariff chaos is harder.

At skucamp 2025 in Scottsdale, three industry titans sat down with commonsku CEO Catherine Graham for an unusually candid conversation about what it really takes to lead through historic transformation.

• Frank Myers has steered S&S Activewear (now a Connected+ supplier on commonsku) through nine acquisitions including the massive alphabroder deal.
• CJ Schmidt transformed HIT Promotional Products from family business to top-five supplier.
• Pierre Montaubin navigates Koozie Group through private equity ownership while maintaining the company's soul.
  
  Together, they control supply chains that touch nearly every distributor. Their decisions about automation, inventory, and integration shape what's possible for thousands of businesses downstream.
  
  

The Acquisition Playbook Nobody Writes About

S&S Activewear's absorption of alphabroder defied conventional wisdom. Seven months from deal close to system conversion. Eighteen months faster than their investment model projected. Two massive sales forces merged without the typical casualties.

How? Frank Myers credits a decade-old decision to build proprietary technology. "We control our entire software stack. We have a team that's been with us since 2009. That gave us conviction to move fast."

But speed wasn't the real achievement. Discipline was.

Everyone has this propensity to rush. We deliberately moved slower than our capabilities allowed. We needed to understand how each company uniquely solved problems before we could create something better than either alone.

— Frank Myers

Pierre Montaubin faced a different merger dynamic at Koozie Group. Mill Point  Capital already owned Garylline when they acquired Koozie, setting up an unusual situation where both portfolio companies needed to combine under Pierre's leadership.

His integration philosophy sounds simple but rarely happens: "Listen first. We discovered Garylline had a brilliant way of displaying same-day orders on the factory floor. Every Koozie site director who visited wanted the same system. So we implemented it company-wide."

The Quarter-Million Dollar Surprise

The panel didn't dance around tariff reality. CJ shared the story that keeps distributors awake: a 300,000-piece ceramic mug order where duties jumped from 2% to 145% mid-shipment.

Try making that phone call. 'Would you like to pay an extra $226,000 on your order?' They paid because they needed those mugs for an event. But that's today's reality—massive cost swings with zero warning.

— CJ Schmidt

Frank's strategy prioritizes reliability over rock-bottom costs. S&S maintains Mexican manufacturing operations that cost significantly more than Asian alternatives. US cotton travels to Mexico for processing in vertically integrated facilities, then returns as finished goods.

"It's deliberately suboptimal from a cost perspective," Frank admitted. "But it's insurance. When tariffs spike or supply chains freeze, having USMCA-compliant production becomes invaluable."

Pierre offered a global perspective from his years in Hong Kong: "Chinese manufacturers are real partners, not just vendors. They have our personal phone numbers. They call asking why orders are down. They're investing outside China themselves because they see the risk."

The Fax Machine Only Just Died

Frank dropped a statistic that crystallized the industry's digital challenge: when he joined S&S in 2009, 80% of orders arrived via phone or fax. The celebration moment when digital orders finally exceeded fax orders? That was 2021.

Today, S&S uses machine learning to manage 120,000 SKUs across 23 buildings. The AI must distinguish between genuine demand patterns and outliers—like the distributor who orders 150,000 units once and never again.

The challenge isn't just forecasting demand. It's knowing when NOT to restock. Nobody needs that random Kansas basketball team color sitting in inventory for ten years.

— Frank Myers

Koozie Group's approach focuses on sales enablement. Their Glean AI tool connects distributor searches with intelligent product recommendations. Input a client profile, get product suggestions, anniversary reminders, and selling strategies.

Print-on-Demand's Uncomfortable Truth

The conversation turned surprisingly candid when discussing print-on-demand economics.

"Let's be honest—it's a necessary evil versus profitable," CJ stated. "We're doing one-piece orders where customers haggle over fifty cents. But you take the crumbs because you need the relationship."

The technical challenge compounds the economic one. "Every distributor uses a different company store platform," CJ continued. "We're forced to integrate with dozens of systems. It's impossible to achieve real efficiency."

Yet Frank sees transformation potential

The broader apparel market is $300 billion. Our slice is maybe $40 billion. Print-on-demand unlocks programs that would never happen otherwise. That gap is our growth opportunity.

— Frank Myers

Leadership Through Chaos

Each CEO revealed personal strategies for managing extraordinary stress.

Pierre's most memorable merger moment came when he had to launch Oracle systems simultaneously in Florida and Hong Kong. "My daughter was being born that day. I spent daylight hours at the hospital and nights at the office managing the go-live. That's a day you never forget." He recently pursued sommelier certification as a healthier outlet, passing the notoriously difficult exam in June.

CJ inherited his management style from his father

Walk every factory daily. There's no eye like an owner's eye. You see problems others miss. Plus I have four young kids. Some days I genuinely can't tell which is harder—them or the business.

— CJ Schmidt

Frank deliberately doesn't carry a laptop when traveling. "Otherwise I get sucked into the lowest-level problem. I'll spend afternoons on $25 customer service issues instead of building systems where thousands of decisions happen correctly without me."

The Five-Year Bet

Looking ahead, the panel offered bold predictions.

Pierre believes screen printing dies within five years: 

Digital technology is mature enough now. DTF, inkjet—the quality matches or exceeds traditional methods. Plus, young workers want to run machines with iPads, not spend six months learning offset printing.

— Pierre Montaubin

Frank sees AI reshaping inventory management: "Demand planning, sales enablement, automated forecasting—these aren't futuristic concepts. They're happening now."

CJ predicts print-on-demand will transform from necessary evil to growth engine: "Two years from now, POD will be a significant portion of everyone's business. The economics will figure themselves out."

The Infrastructure Investment

These transformations require massive capital deployment. Frank's PopPick system cost $200 million. Pierre's digital printing equipment runs millions per installation. CJ's automation initiatives demand continuous investment.

As S&S demonstrated by becoming a Connected+ supplier, the future requires both technological sophistication and seamless integration with distribution partners. Their real-time inventory, automated order processing, and instant pricing updates through commonsku represent the new standard for supplier capabilities.

What It Means

The leaders on stage at skucamp 2025 have chosen their path. They're building for an industry that will look fundamentally different in five years—more automated, more integrated, more demanding of both suppliers and distributors.

As Catherine noted in closing: "What's magical about this industry is watching fierce competitors maintain genuine friendships and mutual respect."

That collaboration, combined with billions in strategic investment, might be exactly what promotional products needs to claim its share of the massive opportunity ahead.