#34 Chris Lee

The Pebble Group – CEO

2022 Rank: NR

Industry Experience: 22 Years

Previous Appearances on Power 50: 4

Christopher Lee’s influence in the merch space spans continents.

An Englishman who once played professional football (the kind you kick) in his home country, Lee helms U.K-headquartered The Pebble Group, a publicly traded company that’s parent firm to Brand Addition (asi/202515) and Facilisgroup. Both companies in the Pebble fold are making waves under Lee, who was Counselor’s 2013 International Person of the Year.

With locations in the U.K., U.S., Germany, Ireland, Shanghai and Hong Kong, Brand Addition is a global distributor that generated about $145 million in promo sales in 2022, with $35 million of that coming from the U.S. Both Facilisgroup and Brand Addition continued to grow sales in the first half of 2023.

Indeed, Facilisgroup is one of the most significant software-as-a-solution providers in the North American promo market. Consider: The gross value of merchandise transacted through the technology solutions Facilisgroup provides distributors increased by 9% year over year to $688 million during the first six months of 2023 alone.

In fact, Lee (a former Power 50 member who last made the list in 2020) marks his return to the list this year because he perhaps has never had a deeper, more direct hand in Facilisgroup than of late. In early October, Lee took over as acting president of Facilis following the departure of former Power 50 member and Facilisgroup President Ashley McCune.