As part of Print & Promo Marketing’s ongoing feature, Executive Perspectives, we get to know leading professionals in the print and promotional industry. This month, we interviewed Jose Gomez, president and CEO of Edwards Garment, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Here, he shares his goal-setting process, gets honest about staffing challenges, and explains how apparel companies help brands tell meaningful stories.
Print & Promo Marketing: How did you get started in this industry, and what path did you take to land in your current role?
Jose Gomez: I was recruited by consulting firm Kurt Salmon out of graduate school. This gave me a dozen years of exposure to the consumer products industry, working for global apparel brands and retailers to develop strategic plans and to implement operational improvements. After that, I transitioned to executive roles in the apparel industry, first with Alternative Apparel in Los Angeles, California and then with Edwards in 2011. My career here started in supply chain [and] then grew into all operations until I got promoted to president in 2022 and started to also lead the sales, customer service, merchandising and marketing teams, as well as our custom division in Vancouver, Edwards X.
PPM: How do you set goals for yourself? For your business?
JG: I essentially look at recent performance, benchmarks, and key drivers that will change the challenges and opportunities in the future, to identify what is meaningful to me or to our business. Then, I define actions to pursue future changes.
PPM: How does the economy continue to affect the industry?
JG: Uncertainty and potential for slower growth keep tampering the expectations and speed of progress of most companies in the short term. A constant feedback we get from peers and customers is that, although regular operations are “back to normal,” the long-term signals are less clear and, therefore, big bold moves are less frequent. On the other hand, higher cost of money, and talent attraction and retention are long-term factors that require changes to how we operate and make decisions today and for the foreseeable future.
PPM: What do you expect to be some of the biggest changes or challenges the industry will face?
JG: The heightened focus on the meaning of brands is coming fast and strong and is filtering down to the products and services that a company offers. This translates into a higher need to improve products and their marketing to have and to communicate deeper meaning. For us, managing apparel brands, this affects everything — all the way from the functional perspective (e.g., quality, durability, environmental impact) to the personal/cultural perspective (e.g., the values of the brand and the team behind the product).
PPM: What keeps you up at night?
JG: I prefer to sleep at night, but what keeps me challenged during the day is finding talent and developing talent — a team that has the drive, empowerment, and creativity to move forward and reinvent the company and its brands as needed.
PPM: What do you think is the most exciting, cutting-edge thing your company is doing right now?
JG: Interestingly, some of the key values that were built in our culture decades ago (reliability, honesty, and the drive to serve customers) are now on the cutting-edge of what many companies want to achieve. In a way, making our values shine through our brands, products, and services is “it” on the strategic side. On a more tactical basis, our push to embrace technology and be an industry leader in automated/integrated relationships with our distributors keeps delivering results, opening new ways to grow the business, and is a great source for value for us and
our customers.
PPM: What would people be surprised to learn about you?
JG: I really enjoy traveling as a way to marvel at nature, and to experience other cultures and enrich my perspective from meeting other people. I have visited dozens of countries on all continents.
Want to be considered for a future edition of Executive Perspectives? Contact Elise Hacking Carr at [email protected] for a list of questions and other details.
