This week, as ASI Media reveals the 2022 Counselor Power 50 list of the industry’s most influential people, three newcomers to the list – Megan Spire, vice president of sales at BELLA+CANVAS (asi/39590); Mitch Freed, CEO of Top 40 distributor Genumark (asi/204588); and Britney Godsey, chief revenue officer at Gold Bond (asi/57653) – joined Executive Editor Sara Lavenduski to discuss their career paths, upcoming initiatives at their respective firms, and what it’s like being part of the next generation of leaders in promo.

“We’ve always had a big commitment to sustainability and ultimately our impact on the environment,” says Spire, who joins colleague Chris Blakeslee on the Power 50 list. “One of our new initiatives involves formalized reporting. It’s a global sustainability strategy that will include a published report with third-party audited measurements against benchmarks and progress-to-goals, rather than just us operating and making decisions along the way.”

Godsey says the industry is changing for the better, and younger leaders are ready for the next iteration of it. “It’s not enough anymore to give clients the cheapest price,” says Godsey. “So how do you build brand loyalty? Newer leaders just have a better grip on that because they’ve grown up experiencing it, with brands throwing themselves at them every day to get them to convert. … The bullying for pricing concessions that we’ve seen in the past is just not enough to win loyalty moving forward.”

Even though Genumark – Canada’s largest distributor – is his family’s business and he’d worked there part-time as a student, Freed hadn’t seen himself there in any significant capacity. In fact, it wasn’t until recently that he made the decision to come aboard full-time. Now the CEO, he took the reins in early 2022 from his dad, Mark – a recurring member of the Power 50 list and Genumark’s executive chairman – and joins his father on the list for the first time.

“It was just a conversation I had with my dad about succession and what was going to happen to Genumark in the years to come,” he says. “I was looking to buy and operate a business in another industry and quickly understood that there was a benefit to me, my dad and the business to join when I did.”