PPAI • JUNE 2026 • 57 Distributors | Must Read Except with scale, it turns out needs and expectations change. A Generational Shift Nearing 80, Simon retired last summer, and the keys were handed to Hilt. The company was not only large but profitable, respected and deeply embedded in the industry’s fabric. But for any firm, especially those held as investment capital, the future is more important than the past. HALO had several ownership transitions during Simon’s tenure and was last acquired by private equity firm TPG in 2018. Hilt’s previous CEO role, at collector metal company Asset Marketing Services, involved positioning the brand for market expansion and culminated in a sale to new investors. One can imagine the reason for urgency in the work at HALO. “There are leaders that can get it to $100 million, and there are leaders that can get it to $1 billion,” Hilt says. “When you get north of a billion, you start to get into issues of scale that are just incredibly different.” Different, in this case, means something closer to a shift in how the business actually operates. For years, HALO’s success had been built on the strength of its people – particularly its account executives, who drove growth through relationships, persistence and, at times, individual brilliance. It was a model that rewarded initiative and delivered results. That tension between what made HALO successful and what can allow it to continue growing steadily is where this next chapter begins. “You can’t rely on just the heroics,” Hilt says. “You have to replicate it.” It could be that the very traits that built HALO, and maybe the entire merch industry – autonomy, entrepreneurial drive, the ability to solve problems in the moment – are no longer enough on their own. Not if a company intends to operate as something more than a collection of successful individuals. Not if it intends to function with operational discipline. No More Heroes It happens in every organization. A key client emerges with an immediate need or a deadline tightens, maybe a program expands beyond its original scope. Somewhere, a person or a small team steps in, solves the problem, delivers the result and moves on. They get polite applause at the all-staff meeting for saving the day. And it works until it doesn’t. Heroics are, by nature, uneven. They depend on the individual, the timing and circumstances. They produce moments of award-winning excellence, but not always consistency. And so the shift begins. Operational discipline means the creation of systems that can extend what heroes do best or automate their brilliant instinct. “That starts with leadership, hiring the right people, having the right technology,” says Mitch Mounger, HALO’s executive vice president of strategic accounts, who himself led a large and growing distributor for nearly 25 years – Sunrise Identity – before selling it to HALO when facing a scaling plateau of his own. In a resort meeting room, I speak to Mounger and others from the leadership Mitch Mounger “I bet everybody understands where we’re going as a company. Like, we’re not debating our goals and objectives.” – MITCH MOUNGER
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