A promo industry veteran with experience at Top 40 firms has joined Stran & Company (asi/337725) as vice president of operations.

The Quincy, MA-headquartered Top 40 distributorship said Nicole Brown will be taking over the key management role, reporting directly to Chief Operating Officer Sheila Johnshoy.

Nicole Brown, Stran & Company

Brown began working with Stran in August 2022 as a full-time contractor focused on the implementation of NetSuite. As vice president of operations, she’ll update the firm’s management approach/offering and provide additional leadership on purchasing, freight, and warehousing and fulfillment.

With about 15 years of experience in the promo products industry, Brown has a track record of successfully building out program management initiatives at Top 40 firms, Johnshoy noted.

“I couldn’t be more excited to expand Nicole’s role at Stran and bring her industry experience to how we operate as an industry leader in branded merchandise program management,” Johnshoy said. “Nicole’s work in helping us to launch NetSuite has been invaluable, and I look forward to the many contributions she will continue to make across the organization.”

Brown’s past positions include being director of project management at Leaderpromos.com (asi/287087). She was also director of program operations and warehouse logistics at Top 40 distributor ePromos Promotional Products (asi/188515), and a global account manager at Touchstone Merchandise Group (asi/345631), also a Top 40 company.

Based on 2021 North American promo product revenue of $47.3 million, Stran & Company ranked 34th on Counselor’s most recent list of the largest distributors in the industry. Stran became a publicly traded company in late 2021. Through the first nine months of 2022, the firm’s sales were up 50% year over year, but Stran still recorded a net loss through the three-quarters. Fourth quarter/full-year results are not available yet.