#21 Chris Blakeslee & Megan Spire

BELLA+CANVAS (asi/39590)

2021 Rank: #24 and N/A

Chris Blakeslee – President

Industry Experience: 12 years

Previous Appearances on Power 50: 2

Megan Spire – Vice President of Sales

Industry Experience: 11 years

Previous Appearances on Power 50: 0

It all started on Craigslist.

Megan Spire was on the hunt for her first job after graduating from the University of California Santa Barbara. She was looking for a customer-facing position that would allow her to leverage her not inconsiderable interpersonal skills (she served as vice president of marketing for her sorority in addition to receiving a degree in sociology – which is, after all, the study of people).

She answered the online ad for an outside sales rep gig at a wholesale apparel supplier – not knowing anything about the promotional products industry – but loving the idea of working in fashion. “Clothing felt like a natural fit,” Spire says.

Executive Editor Sara Lavenduski spoke with Power 50 newcomers Mitch Freed, Britney Godsey and Megan Spire during a recent Promo Insiders podcast.

Eleven years and several promotions later, Spire has no regrets about her decision to join Bella+Canvas. Now the vice president of sales, Spire has become a trusted authority both within the company and for promo as a whole. That success trajectory – married with a devotion to sharing knowledge – helped earn Spire a spot on this year’s Power 50, alongside Bella President Chris Blakeslee.

“Day to day, Megan leads the Bella+Canvas organization as a thoughtful, empathic and decisive leader who strives for perfection in everything she does, and she inspires other to do so as well,” says Blakeslee. During her time with the company, “She’s not only helped to quadruple Bella+Canvas in revenue, but she’s become well known across the industry for her insights and innovative leadership approach and willingness to be involved in the details while never losing sight of strategy.”

“Megan leads the Bella+Canvas organization as a thoughtful, empathic and decisive leader who strives for perfection in everything she does, and she inspires other to do so as well.”Chris Blakeslee

Spire jokes that she spends more time in the office than she does with her husband. “It feels like a family,” she says of company culture. “Everyone here works really hard, but we all get along. It’s very collaborative, very social.”

It doesn’t hurt that Bella+Canvas’s new headquarters are in the heart of Beverly Hills, and office amenities include a gym, yoga, twice-daily visits from an esthetician, cold plunges, heat saunas, a music studio, kombucha and cold brew on tap in the kitchen. Plus, Spire can bring Cooper – a 3-year-old German shepherd mix that she describes as “the love of my life” – into the office each day.

For Spire, there’s a joy in showing customers the value of a premium product from Bella+Canvas. A basic, scratchy-feeling tee with a boxy fit, she says, might seem like a better deal on the surface if you’re looking at price tag alone, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

“In our industry in particular, we have to go out and educate about what it means to invest in a higher-quality product and why it makes sense to pay more” for a shirt that end-users actually want to wear, she says. “Maybe you’re spending more upfront, but every time it gets seen and worn and worn and worn, that cost-per-impression goes down and down and down.”

Another point of pride? A deep inventory, thanks to some major investments, like the $11.9 million fabric-cutting facility the company is planning in Alabama.

“We create a lot of demand for the product, but then we haven’t had the inventory to service it historically,” Spire says. “Over the last 18 months, we invested heavily in our infrastructure and our operation, and we’re not taking our foot off the gas.”

Indeed, Spire aims to be right there in the driver’s seat as Bella+Canvas speeds into the future. “I envision a world where Bella+Canvas is the biggest basics brand in the market,” she says, adding that her stretch goal would be running the company when that day comes. “Dream big, right?”