Fred Parker is back in promo.

The industry veteran has joined Indiana-headquartered Certified Marketing Consultants (CMC) as a mergers and acquisitions specialist. CMC, which has been in business for over 40 years, is a consultancy that specializes in advising promo product companies on private sales, mergers/acquisitions and business valuations.

Fred Parker, CMC

“I am excited,” said Parker, “to continue serving the great people in the promotional products industry with the leading M&A firm: CMC.”

Parker was formerly a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of the industry’s most influential people and the 2012 Counselor Distributor Entrepreneur of the Year.

“Fred expands our bandwidth with his industry knowledge, experience and professionalism." Jamie Watson, CMC

During his more than 20 years in promo, Parker’s roles included CEO of Activate!, a North Carolina-headquartered distributorship, and CEO of former Top 40 distributor A Brand Company. Parker founded PH Business Consulting in 2020 and has acted as consulting principal of the firm for the last three years.

Jamie Watson, a partner and chief operating officer at CMC, said the addition of Parker comes at an important time, as merger and acquisition activity in the promo market continues to heat up.

“M&A-related activity has been strong since the pandemic, including valuations and succession planning as well as sales transactions,” Watson said. “Fred expands our bandwidth with his industry knowledge, experience and professionalism.”