Awards October 26, 2026
Counselor Power 50 2026: No. 17 Memo Kahan & Kate Alavez, PromoShop
Welcome to the 2026 Counselor Power 50 list, which ranks the most influential people in the promo products industry.
#17 Memo Kahan & Kate Alavez
PromoShop (asi/300446)
Memo Kahan – CEO
2025 Rank: #21
Industry Experience: 34 years
Previous Appearances on Counselor Power 50: 9
Kate Alavez – President
2025 Rank: #21
Industry Experience: 20 years
Previous Appearances on Counselor Power 50: 2
Memo Kahan and Kate Alavez, the CEO and president of Counselor Top 40 distributor PromoShop (asi/300446), respectively, continue their climb up the Counselor Power 50 list, jumping four spots following a year of intentional growth and high influence ratings from both their Power 50 peers and the industry at large.
The pair have prioritized focusing on PromoShop’s people, counting collaboration, connection and intentionality with both new and existing employees – especially after two acquisitions in the last two years. It’s an approach that landed the Los Angeles-based firm on this year’s Counselor 2026 Best Places to Work list.
“The push to bring our teams closer together and identify strategic wins has afforded us big wins in revenue enhancement and recognition for our programming,” Alavez says. “The morale, as a result, has skyrocketed.”
Kahan calls today’s world both PromoShop’s greatest challenge and greatest opportunity, whether it’s inflation, rapid shifts in consumer behavior or new technology. The latter has been a key focus for the distributor this year and will remain a priority heading into 2027. Looking ahead, PromoShop’s people always remain a priority, with one of Alavez’s main goals being to help each team member build and reach their own goals.
AI Perspective
Alavez: “I’m in favor of thoughtful, intentional, responsible AI use in both personal and professional settings. The current landscape requires a balanced, ethical user experience focused on improving outputs without layering in excessive AI waste. For example, because of the impact on the planet, I work to use AI in ways that reduce excessive challenges or laborious tasks, but I don’t use AI for generating outputs like caricatures of myself for social media. It’s not a judgment of others; it’s simply a commitment I make to ask myself before engaging with the AI model if my use is excessive or an application that will save waste elsewhere (such as time or money). Rote tasks, data analysis, text improvement and summaries are some key areas that provide big wins at work and at home.”