AIA Corporation (AIA), Appleton, Wis., announced two recent promotions. After serving as director of owner success for the past year, Clay Hall has been promoted to vice president of owner success. Rochelle Blindauer has been promoted to senior vice president of owner and employee services. She previously served as vice president of human resources and legal.
In his new role, Hall will be responsible for providing AIA’s nearly 300 distributors with the resources needed to achieve their business, sales and rebate goals. He will continue to manage AIA’s team of Success Managers and report to Kimberly Fulford, senior vice president of owner success.
Hall and his team will continue to partner closely with AIA Owners to identify the opportunities and challenges of running their companies. This includes developing individualized success plans while leveraging AIA’s proprietary business intelligence software to glean key insights and help them utilize advanced technology to increase efficiency.
Additionally, Hall will manage AIA’s events team, which produces AIA’s national sales meeting, regional meetings and educational trainings to provide AIA Owners and their employees with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the promotional products industry.
“Clay’s promotion is a result of his successful track record with AIA, his commitment to our distributors and accomplishments at the director level,” said Fulford. “Under Clay’s leadership in 2019, 114 of our Owners experienced positive growth of up to 20 percent and four Owners increased sales greater than $1 million versus the prior year. Clay has also done an outstanding job launching AIA’s sales training program, co-producing the On Air with AIA podcast and recruiting industry veterans to the Owner Success team.”
Since joining AIA in 2015, Hall has also served in recruitment and sales development roles. His 30-year career in the print and promotional products industry includes a variety of sales and business development roles within Staples Promotional Products, Staples Print Solutions and Corporate Express. In that time, Hall has managed both national and regional sales teams, overseeing more than $45 million in sales and $12 million in gross profits.
“I look forward to building on the momentum our Owner Success team had in 2019 and to continue to share AIA’s enhanced set of services, tools and technology that will support AIA Owner growth and goals in the years ahead,” said Hall.
Blindauer, in her new role, will lead the service delivery, training, human resources and continuous improvement departments. As a member of the AIA leadership team, she will continue to report to CEO, Matt Gresge. Specifically, Blindauer will be responsible for building, delivering, optimizing and continuously improving order processing, order management, employee and owner training, human resources administration, employment compliance, and employee engagement.
“Rochelle’s promotion is much deserved and a testament to her commitment to build an organization that lives by its core values, nurtures talent development and provides business owners with a true sense of community and camaraderie,” said Gresge. “ In the past year alone, Rochelle has made her mark—leading the relocation of AIA’s corporate headquarters to Appleton and supporting the recruitment of over 20 new team members.”
Since joining AIA in 2018, Blindauer has led AIA’s human resources and legal departments. In this capacity she focused on legal agreement standardization, talent recruitment and the training and development of team members. Prior to AIA, she gained extensive operational and human resources management experience working in various sectors, including retail, government and higher education.
“I am thrilled to expand my role with AIA and to bring an even greater focus to elevating the AIA employee and owner experience,” said Blindauer. “AIA values feedback and transparency and we don’t settle for less than our core values—it’s truly a smart, hungry, honest, collaborative and all in team. I’m proud to be a part of this company and look forward to continued success.”
For more information, visit www.aiacommunity.com.
