Jeff Lederer is moving on.

After 27 years in the promotional products business, the president of Prime Line (asi/79530), Top 40 supplier alphabroder’s (asi/34063) hard goods division, has decided its time for a new chapter. While he’s exiting his day-to-day role with Trevose, PA-based alphabroder, Lederer will remain an adviser to CEO Norm Hullinger, effective Jan. 1, 2021.

Jeff Lederer

Lederer’s father, Bob, founded Bridgeport, CT-based Prime Line. Jeff Lederer led the company to growth through organic sales gains and acquisitions over the years.

“It has been my honor to work alongside so many incredibly talented, dedicated, hard-working team members and customers,” said Lederer, previously a member of Counselor’s Power 50, a definitive ranking of the most influential people in promo. “By building on a legacy started by my father, Prime grew to become one of the industry’s premier hard good suppliers.”

Prime Line consistently ranked as one of the promo industry’s largest suppliers by revenue as a standalone company. In 2017, Lederer sold Prime to alphabroder in a deal that wed what was then the industry’s biggest supplier, apparel juggernaut alphabroder, with one of its largest hard goods providers in Prime Line, which was at the time promo’s 11th-largest supplier. As part of the deal, Lederer joined alphabroder as president of the Prime Line hard goods division.

“Since purchasing Prime three years ago, our vision has remained the same: to be the supplier of choice providing our customers the first true one-stop shop in the industry,” said Hullinger. “Under Jeff’s leadership, we have been able to successfully build upon Prime’s strong reputation and expand the decoration network, all while leveraging alphabroder’s operational expertise and broad sales reach.”

Alphabroder, with Prime’s sales included, ranked second on Counselor’s 2020 list of the largest suppliers in the industry based on 2019 North American promo product revenue of $1.7 billion.

Lederer said Prime has nearly completed a successful integration with alphabroder, making now a good time to depart.

“I leave with full confidence that the entire team is well-positioned for a promising future,” Lederer said. “I appreciate the partnership of my Prime colleagues and the alphabroder management team over these past few years. It has been an exciting journey. As you can imagine, this decision comes with a mixture of emotions. That said, I move on to this next chapter with gratitude and excitement.”

What the future holds for Lederer isn’t fixed. Still, he’s not ruling out further involvement in promo one day.

“This is a strange time in life and business for all of us, and for me the most important thing is to follow my passion of building amazing teams, putting great companies together and helping people all the way – in or out of this great industry,” Lederer said. “The long-standing relationships with everyone from customers to vendors to competitors is so unique, and I’m sure I will stay connected for many years. I’ll also be leveraging my connections outside of this industry, and it’s always possible to bring both together.”

Lederer added that what he’s enjoyed most about being in promo are the close relationships he’s formed with “so many incredible and talented people. I’ve learned and benefitted so much from such a wide spectrum of people and I’m grateful for that. Also, there’s no one I’m more appreciative of than my father, Bob Lederer, who, among a ton of other life and business lessons, taught me that if you love your job, you will never work a day in your life. That’s always the goal.”