#18 Jake Himelstein

BAMKO (asi/131431) – President

2021 Rank: N/A

Industry Experience: 9 years

Previous Appearances on Power 50: 0

As a child, Jake Himelstein’s family didn’t have much money.

“We never owned a home or a new car growing up, but I had the most supporting and loving family you could ever ask for,” shares Himelstein. “My motivation has always come from wanting to provide for my parents and my family so that they never have to worry.”

For sure, that desire has proved a powerful inspiration for the married father of three kids below the age of 10.

Himelstein’s hard-hustling work ethic and business acumen have propelled him to the president’s position at BAMKO (asi/131431). In the summer of 2021, he took over for Phil Koosed, the company’s co-founder, then president and a noted philanthropist who last year placed first on Counselor’s Power 50. Himelstein’s ascension came as Koosed rose to chief strategy officer at Superior Group of Companies (SGC), BAMKO’s parent firm.

While BAMKO remains an integral part of Koosed’s broader SGC-wide focus, the distributorship’s top officer is now Himelstein. He’s the one leading the firm toward what executives say will be a more than $300 million year in global revenue.

“Jake is a strong and effective leader,” says Joshua White, BAMKO’s head of strategy and general counsel. “He communicates clearly, is committed to transparency, and has a vision for BAMKO and our people that folks can believe in.”

Himelstein joined BAMKO in June 2013. He held the titles of chief financial officer and chief operating officer before becoming president. Over the years, he was responsible for the finance, accounting, operations, human resources and programming departments across BAMKO’s global offices, and led major efforts that included a full-scale ERP system implementation, re-working the company’s capital structure and playing a vital leadership role in BAMKO’s sale to SGC six years ago.

Since becoming president, Himelstein has spearheaded a number of impressive accomplishments, including integrating HPI, SGC’s uniform division, under the distributorship’s umbrella. “It was a big, bold effort that required everyone to pitch in to build something better,” Himelstein says.

With Himelstein at the helm, BAMKO undertook a comprehensive rebranding in 2022 to better project the character of the company as it’s constituted today. Himelstein is also proud of how BAMKO has performed amid the ever-changing marketplace dynamics of the COVID-19 era.

“When the wave of 2020 PPE sales receded as expected in 2021, we faced a major challenge to try to continue growing topline revenue,” Himelstein explains. “When we looked back at our 2021 performance though, we were able to grow our core branded merchandise revenue in record fashion. It was this healthy, sustainable growth in our core segment that we created in 2021 that really set the bar for who BAMKO will be in the decade to come.”

White says an essential catalyst for that growth has been the BAMKO culture that started under Koosed and that’s continued to grow under Himelstein. “There’s a commitment to the employee experience that builds better people,” White explains. “Jake has made it clear that the better people we build, the better company we will be.”

While culture is key to Himelstein’s leadership style, make no mistake: He understands the no-nonsense nuts and bolts of doing business in a highly competitive marketplace. With degrees in accounting and business finance from the University of Southern California, Himelstein spent nine years at audit/consulting/tax services firm Deloitte in positions that included audit manager and special acquisition services M&A senior manager.

“At Deloitte, I worked with Fortune 500 companies across the globe,” he shares. “I learned what makes companies successful and how great leaders manage their teams.” He pauses, then adds with a laugh: “I also learned pretty quickly after joining BAMKO that it’s much easier to be a consultant telling companies what to do than it is to actually manage a company day to day.”