1. Phil Koosed

BAMKO (asi/131431)/Superior Group of Companies

2020 Rank: 9

Title: Chief Strategy Officer
Industry Experience: 22 years

Phil Koosed’s entrepreneurial vision is redefining what it means to be a promotional products distributorship, leading to wildly successful results that have compelled the entire industry to take notice.

High influence scores from promo peers, an impressive track record of serial innovation, and an industry-leading performance during the pandemic all combined to propel the founder of Top 40 distributor BAMKO into the #1 spot on this year’s Power 50.

“Phil is a combination of thoughtful, introspective and hyper-aggressive,” says Jon Levine, CEO of Top 40 distributor The Image Group (asi/230069). “We’re in an industry that I would characterize as collegial. There are a few examples where a company is led by a winner-take-all leader. Phil and his team are one of those companies and I admire their focus on growth. They do things differently than the traditional distributor and their approach has served them well.”

Indeed, as promo distributors’ collective sales plummeted nearly 20% on average in 2020, BAMKO increased its annual North American promo revenue by 78.5% to $194 million – the greatest year-over-year rise of any Top 40 distributor. Program business and opportunities with thriving clients helped, but the revenue gain was driven significantly by a rapid, early pivot to selling personal protective (PPE).

Koosed’s visionary leadership was essential to BAMKO delving into PPE. That the company was able to do so with such aplomb was thanks in large part to its extensive global sourcing network – itself a product of Koosed and his leadership team crafting a business model that incorporates deeply connected direct relationships with overseas manufacturers.

The approach deviates from the traditional industry supply chain model, and that’s drawn grumbles from some corners. Still, Koosed’s not concerned with that. Since founding BAMKO as an undergrad in 1999, he’s been laser-focused on building a different kind of distributorship – one that provides maximum value to end-clients.

“We’re an entirely different company than has ever existed in this space,” Koosed asserts.

Technological superiority is at the heart of that distinction. After connecting with a talented programmer online in the early 2000s, Koosed flew to India to meet the man – Ankur Sinha.

Becoming fast friends, Sinha went to work for Koosed and the pair began executing a technology vision they’d mapped out. Expanding on that plan over the years, BAMKO is now one of promo’s most technologically sophisticated distributorships. For sure, BAMKO’s proprietary e-commerce platform and in-house-built order processing system are among the tech solutions that provide key competitive advantages.

“The traditional way of ordering, selling, and delivering promo is antiquated, inefficient and largely broken,” Koosed says. “That will all change and it will be dramatically improved by companies like BAMKO that are reimagining the entire customer journey through the use of technology.”

Still, robust technology and expansive, dexterous sourcing capabilities aren’t the only elements of Koosed’s business vision that have been brought to life to spur success. Just as important is what everyone from competitors to partners to BAMKO employees describe as the distributorship’s fantastic culture, which fosters creativity, inclusivity and fun – for employees, clients and end-users. The good vibes and tech-fueled capabilities have helped attract a wealth of top-notch promo talent to BAMKO.

“As we grew into a $200 million company, we feared we’d get there at the expense of our culture,” says Koosed. “In fact, the opposite is true. The more we’ve grown, the more ‘BAMKO’ we’ve become. We’re having more fun than ever.”

“As we grew into a $200 million company, we feared we’d get there at the expense of our culture. In fact, the opposite is true. The more we’ve grown, the more ‘BAMKO’ we’ve become. We’re having more fun than ever.” – Phil Koosed

Beyond earning recognition for architecting BAMKO’s growth, Koosed has won wide praise in promo circles for his humanitarian efforts. He and his wife Tamar are the founders of Save the Syrian Children, a nonprofit that delivers life-saving medical supplies to help kids impacted by the Syrian Civil War. Koosed is a past winner of Counselor’s Bess Cohn Humanitarian Award for the life-saving efforts.

“Even more important than what Phil has done at BAMKO, is what he and his wife do in philanthropy,” says CJ Schmidt, a Power 50 member and president/COO of Top 40 supplier Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125). “I love that he has taken his success and helped with the greater good in the world.”

Back on the job, Koosed’s profile rose even higher this year when he earned a promotion from BAMKO president to chief strategy officer at Superior Group of Companies, the distributorship’s parent organization. (Jake Himelstein, an eight-year BAMKO veteran who’d been serving as chief financial officer/chief operating officer, was promoted to president of the distributorship, having emerged as what Superior executives described as an “invaluable leader.”)

A top priority in Koosed’s new position is exploring ways to leverage offerings from Superior’s other divisions, which go beyond promo products, to further accelerate BAMKO’s success. One example of that, Koosed explains, is devising a plan for leveraging Superior’s corporate uniforms unit, HPI, to “turn BAMKO into the best uniform company in the promo space.”

Such initiatives are all part of Koosed’s plan to keep BAMKO several steps ahead of competitors.

“We want to build a moat around our business by becoming invaluable to clients,” Koosed says. “That means doing things for our clients that our competitors aren’t able to do. A lot of this is wrapped up in technology, but the key is actually the holistic integration of several component parts like marketing strategy, sourcing, fulfillment, custom design, demographic analysis and lots more. We plan to keep winning.”