#6 Frank Myers

S&S Activewear (asi/84358) – CEO

2023 Rank: #26

Industry Experience: 15 Years

Previous Appearances on Power 50: 1

Frank Myers catapulted 20 places higher on this year’s Counselor’s Power 50 list – and with good reason.

As CEO of S&S Activewear he spearheaded the single largest acquisition the promotional products industry has ever seen when the Counselor Top 40 supplier – a multibillion-dollar company – bought fellow Counselor Top 40 supplier alphabroder (asi/34063), a $2 billion firm, this year.

The deal was nothing short of seismic, with some executives calling the wedding of promo’s second and third largest suppliers an industry-changing event.

Still, for Myers, the deal was in some ways just a continuation of the strategy he’s played a lead role in constructing for more than a decade at S&S.

The effort has included expanding the firm’s distribution footprint with more facilities at strategic geographic locations and making multiple acquisitions, such as also buying former Counselor Top 40 firm TSC Apparel in 2021. The upshot of these and other initiatives was that S&S Activewear grew from a solid regional supplier in the Midwest to a firm that’s now poised to potentially become the industry’s single biggest.

As chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Myers was instrumental in authoring that growth story, though he operated behind the scenes. Now, two years into his run as CEO and with S&S making its most significant moves yet, Myers is firmly fixed in promo’s limelight. Especially strong scores on influence in the Power 50 survey made that abundantly clear.

Nonetheless, Myers’ nose remains firmly to the grindstone. He points to improving retention – a 50% year-over-year reduction in turnover – and building out a top-notch leadership team as some of S&S’s proudest accomplishments of late. He’s also pumped about S&S’s recent deployment of advanced mobile robots, which help streamline distribution center operations.

“We believe,” says Myers, “that there’s a lot of good to come – for S&S and our customers.”