(Editor’s Note: Amid the voting for the new slate of nominees for the PPAI Board of Directors, PPAI Media is profiling the potential new additions. Be sure to also check out our introduction to Merchology CEO and Co-Founder Ally Delgado.)
Shelley Williams has spent much of her career helping established organizations decide what comes next.
Across nearly three decades in marketing and brand leadership, she has worked inside some of the country’s most recognizable companies, often at moments when the familiar path was no longer necessarily the right one. At Alaska Airlines, Williams played a central role in recommending the retirement of the Virgin America brand following the carrier’s $4 billion acquisition. Since joining SanMar (PPAI 110788, Platinum) in 2019, she has helped lead through significant organizational changes, including restructuring, workforce decisions and the end of the company’s longtime full-line printed catalog.
Those experiences have demanded more than marketing expertise. They have required weighing business realities against their effects on employees, customers and long-standing traditions – and making decisions with imperfect information.
Williams has also become deeply involved in governance at SanMar, PPAI 100’s No. 1 supplier. As vice president of marketing, she serves on the company’s Employee Engagement and Benefits Committee as well as its Business Risk Executive Committee, giving her a broad view of the considerations that shape a large supplier organization.
Now, she has been nominated to a seat on the PPAI Board of Directors.
The election to approve this year’s two-person board slate begins Aug. 17 at 9 a.m. (CT) and closes Aug. 24 at 5 p.m. (CT). Each PPAI member company’s voting contact is eligible to cast an up-or-down vote for the candidates. Voting will be conducted electronically, and a new 2026 username and password will be emailed to voting contacts when voting opens. A candidate must receive majority approval among votes cast to be named to the Board of Directors following The PPAI Expo 2027.
In this interview with PPAI Media, Williams reflects on her long connection to branded merchandise, what suppliers need to compete in a changing marketplace and why she believes the industry has an opportunity to make a much stronger case for its place in modern marketing.
PPAI Media: What interests you about the opportunity to serve on the PPAI Board?
Williams: Honestly, the chance to give back to an industry I have loved for a long time. Most people know me through my work at SanMar, but my connection to this world goes back further than that. I worked in a screen printing shop in college cutting color separations on a light table with an X-acto and Amberlith/Rubylith film. Something about the energy of that environment, the creativity, the craft, the sense that you were making something tangible that meant something to someone, never really left me. Joining the PPAI board feels like a natural extension of that love, just at a different scale.
I also think I bring a perspective with a different lens. I have spent my career at brands like Disney, Expedia and Alaska Airlines, sitting on the buyer side of this industry before joining SanMar as a supplier. That full-circle view of how branded merchandise fits into a broader marketing strategy is something I am eager to contribute.
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PPAI Media: How do you think your experience prepares you to represent suppliers throughout the membership?
Williams: Suppliers in this industry span an enormous range, from small family-owned decorators to large national manufacturers, and I think that spectrum is actually where my experience is most useful. I have built marketing organizations inside billion-dollar companies and I understand the complexity and resources that come with scale. But I also understand what it feels like to be scrappy, curious, and figuring it out, because I have been there too.
What I bring most is a marketer’s instinct for what suppliers need to grow: clarity of brand, sophistication of customer experience and the ability to communicate value in a crowded market. I want to help PPAI be a resource that makes every supplier, at every size, better at those things.
PPAI Media: What excites you about PPAI’s future, and what would you hope to accomplish during your term?
Williams: I am genuinely excited about the moment we are in. There is real energy around elevating how the world perceives this industry, and I am already getting to contribute to that through being part of PPAI’s Global Marketing Task Force. Branded merchandise deserves to be in the same conversation as digital, experiential and social media marketing, and I think we are closer to making that case than ever before.
During my term I would hope to help PPAI become more relevant to the next generation of industry leaders. This industry was built by entrepreneurs and dreamers, and that spirit is worth honoring. But we also need fresh minds, diverse perspectives, and a willingness to ask “what if” more often. If I can help create a version of PPAI that excites the next generation as much as it has served the current one, that would feel like a meaningful contribution.
Shelley Williams
Vice President of Marketing, SanMar
PPAI Media: What do you believe are the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the industry as a whole?
Williams: The biggest challenge is also the biggest opportunity: relevance. This industry touches more lives than most people realize, from the landscaper outfitting their first crew to the cancer survivor walking down a hospital corridor surrounded by people wearing the same shirt in their honor. That is powerful. That is emotional. That is marketing at its most human. The opportunity is to tell that story loudly and well, and to make sure the buyers, brand managers and marketers who should be investing in this channel understand what they are missing.
The other challenge is the pace of change. Technology, AI, shifting workforce demographics, global supply chain complexity – the businesses that will thrive are the ones that stay curious and adaptable. I want PPAI to model that same energy for its members, being a resource that helps them not just understand what is happening, but feel confident about what comes next.
