PPB November 2020

products industry, and in this 60-minute session, attendees sought to answer an important ethical question: Can you say for certain that there is no forced labor in your supply chain? In Summit’s final session, “Where Do We Spend First As We Rebuild AndWhat Are Our Priorities?,” panelists shared how they’re planning with confidence and addressing concerns related to product responsibility in the age of COVID-19. KimBakalyar, CAS, chief compliance officer at PromoShop, moderated this interactive session with speakers Sandeep Jain, vice president of supply chains at ImagenBrands; Cindy Belloso, global compliance manager at Sunscope; Donna Tyser, director of sales at Alight Promos and Lenny Polakoff, partner at Zagwear. The event drewmany positive reactions fromparticipants. “This year’s programwas extremely valuable for many reasons,” says Kimberly Fulford, MAS, PPE product manager at Proforma. “One, staying informed and connected in our industry is critical and this event provided that forum. Second, PPE is still very new for many distributors and there is a lot to know and understand. I found the FDA session extremely valuable tome so that I can continue to help Proforma owners understand best practices for identifying qualified products and being alert to fraudulent or inferior PPE products.” Longtime participant RosannWebster, chief information officer at SnugZ USA, says, “Wow, this year’s conference has been phenomenal. I feel that PPAI and the PRAG [Product Responsibility Action Group] teamdid such a great job putting this virtual conference together. All of the sessions were relevant, well thought out, had wonderful speakers and I loved the Q&A format that followed each session. As a speaker on one of the panels, I am grateful that the PPAI team took the extra time to pre-record the sessions prior to the event.” She adds that she’s happy that the platformwill remain in place for registrants for a fewmonths. “There are a few sessions that I will go back and watch again. They’ve attached somany resources to the sessions in the platform that are so helpful.” Janie Gaunce, president and CEO of Grapevine Designs, LLC, was impressed with the format as well as content. “Froma technical perspective, it was interesting to move between pre-recorded and live Zoom content. It was so flawlessly produced that it made no difference froma user perspective. I jumped easily between the agenda and actual sessions. The Q&A and chat features were great—those questions from the audience were so valuable. This information is a ‘must have’ for our industry—especially this year—and I will try my darndest to never miss Summit.” Lindsey Davis, MAS, director of promotional sales at Raining Rose, says she found this year’s program especially relevant. “As always, it focused on current compliance trends along with bigger issues and important trainings—I really appreciate that balance. There isn’t a lot of good created by the pandemic, but due to the virtual nature of the conference, we sent more people fromour Quality and Compliance teamand a couple were first-timers. It was a great experience to see themasking great questions about our industry and engaging on the topics where they have expertise.” During Summit, Nathan Cotter of Hit Promotional Products led a discussion on vetting the supply chain with panelists Kyle Earing of Blink Marketing, Cheron Coleman of alphabroder and Pierre Montaubin of BIC Graphic. | NOVEMBER 2020 | 89 CONNECT