PPAI Hires Director Of Digital Transformation AFTER AN EXTENSIVE SEARCH, PPAI brought on CW Karstens in September as director of digital transformation. Karstens will lead the Association’s drive toward helping the promotional products industry adopt and leverage digital tools to create efficient, secure and effective practices. After obtaining a degree in mechanical engineering at Texas A&M, Karstens started his career in the automotive industry. Getting his footing in the manufacturing space, he worked on operational improvements. He also got an early glimpse of robotic enhancements and automation to reduce manual tasks in the automotive industry in the late 1990s. With the automotive industry flattening a bit at the turn of the century, Karstens joined the booming telecom industry, working for Nortel Networks for nine years, and he eventually earned the title enterprise tech support manager. There, he led a team that managed the U.S. federal government’s phone systems. In 2012, Karstens left telecom for another industry primed for opportunities: financial technology. Financial technology gave Karstens room to innovate. He was product manager and VP of operations for an app that streamlined workers’ compensation by enabling wage replacement through debit card, direct deposit, checking account or physical check, which at the time was a big breakthrough for employees and employers. There’s been a trend in Karstens’ career of joining industries at a time when they were ripe for transformation, allowing him to be a part of that progress forward. In his opinion, the promo industry is at that point. “There’s a lot of innovation happening in this industry right now,” Karstens says. “There’s a lot of synchronization that needs to occur.” Karstens will be heavily involved in the push forward for PDX, an open standards formula supported by PPAI. Describing himself as a “sponge” when it comes to PDX, Karstens says the director of digital transformation role will initially involve a lot of learning, but that he thinks he is the right person for the job. “The role fits nicely with my operational skill set,” Karstens says. “I love the innovation aspect, finding the proper solutions for the challenges that an industry is facing.” The difference between promo and the other industries Karstens has worked in is that there are so many differing entities, and as an association, Karstens and PPAI are meant to represent the best interests of all PPAI members. Inside PPAI | Community “There’s a lot of innovation happening in this industry right now. There’s a lot of synchronization that needs to occur.” –CW Karstens PPAI • DECEMBER 2023 • 91
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