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INNOVATE
10 •
PPB
• NOVEMBER 2015
INNOVATE
PROFILE
A BETTER BOTTOM LINE
FOR GILL THORPE, VALUES COME BEFORE PROFITS
BY JULIE RICHIE
EXT YEAR MARKS the 20th anniversary for Gill Thorpe’s UK-based distributorship, The
Sourcing Team, Ltd. (UPIC: SOUR0004), a company she founded around her passion for cre-
ating fully customized products for marketing campaigns.
She started her career at a marketing agency, buying merchandise for major brands, and then moved to a
small distributor (called a gift house in the UK), where she set up a bespoke (a British term meaning custom)
division. “That was the piece I really loved, creating something unique where you work with design and then
source materials and find the right factory,” she says. She became a director at the gift house and soon she and the
other directors realized that the business was going in two different directions—standardized promotional stock
products (such as what you buy from a catalog) and those that were sourced (bespoke). They decided to split the
business. That’s when she created The Sourcing Team to focus on customized solutions. As the business evolved
she added standard promotional
items because “in reality, you have to
have both,” she says.
Business Values
Thorpe is passionate about cor-
porate social responsibility and her
company is on the front line of
compliance, ethical buying and
product safety. “Risks are getting big
in working with the wrong type of
factory, with unsafe products or
products that don’t demonstrate
sustainability or business diversity,”
she says.
N
Gill Thorpe (back middle) and the rest
of The Sourcing Team celebrate 2014
Promotional Products Week.