Eric Shonebarger

Ya Ya Creations is the parent company of eFavormart.com, TableclothsFactory.com, and QuickCandles.com—an 8-brand portfolio serving the global event décor and celebration markets across both B2C and B2B channels. As CEO, I lead full P&L oversight and enterprise strategy for a multi-brand organization, guiding a company-wide transformation focused on scalability, profitability, and long-term enterprise value creation. Key areas of focus include: • Driving market share expansion through disciplined execution, product innovation, and channel optimization. • Elevating customer experience and retention through personalization, data-informed decision-making, and intelligent automation. • Scaling operations and fulfillment infrastructure to support growth while improving margin performance, speed to market, and operational resilience. The organization serves millions of customers annually across North America and internationally, supported by a cross-functional leadership team aligned around accountability, execution, and continuous improvement.

HIT Promotional Products is one of the largest suppliers in the promotional products industry, providing end-to-end sourcing, decoration, and fulfillment solutions to a global customer base. As President, I led enterprise operations and strategy during a period of significant scale and transformation, partnering closely with ownership and the executive team to strengthen operating discipline, expand global capacity, and drive long-term enterprise value. Key areas of responsibility and impact included: • Leading enterprise-wide strategy execution, aligning people, process, and operating cadence across sales, operations, technology, and fulfillment. • Advancing a multi-year M&A and integration strategy, ensuring seamless post-close integration and sustained performance across acquired businesses. • Expanding and optimizing global operations across the Philippines, El Salvador, China, and India to improve capacity, cost efficiency, and service levels. • Scaling a dedicated fulfillment and print-on-demand division to support rapidly growing eCommerce and custom programs. • Driving operational modernization, including lean manufacturing adoption, technology platform upgrades, and achievement of SOC 2 compliance, improving resilience and speed to market. • Leading a company-wide rebrand, strengthening market positioning and customer alignment. Selected Outcomes • Executed and integrated multiple acquisitions, preserving performance and accelerating value realization post-merger. • Built a fulfillment and print-on-demand capability supporting 150,000+ peak-season orders with improved reliability and throughput. • Improved operational efficiency and scalability through lean practices and global sourcing optimization.

During a period of post-pandemic volatility, I led enterprise operational execution and cross-functional coordination to support rapid demand recovery and sustained growth. As COO, I aligned strategic priorities with operating metrics across sales, operations, technology, and fulfillment, enabling the organization to absorb 20%–100% increases in order volume while maintaining service levels, efficiency, and operational stability. Key areas of impact included: • Providing enterprise-wide operational leadership across multiple business units, strengthening alignment, accountability, and execution cadence. • Scaling operations and fulfillment capacity to support extreme demand variability without sacrificing efficiency or customer experience. • Leading a company-wide strategic marketing assessment and executing a comprehensive rebrand, strengthening market positioning and customer engagement. • Leveraging data and operating metrics to drive informed decision-making during a period of heightened uncertainty and rapid change. Selected Outcomes • Successfully scaled operations to accommodate 20%–100% demand surges while maintaining efficiency and service reliability. • Strengthened cross-functional collaboration and execution discipline across the enterprise. • Delivered a rebrand that improved market clarity, customer engagement, and long-term competitive positioning.

As Chief Information Officer, I aligned enterprise technology strategy with business objectives to support scale, operational efficiency, and profitability during a period of sustained growth and acquisition-driven expansion. Partnering closely with ownership, executive leadership, and operations teams, I led initiatives that strengthened the company’s operating foundation, reduced structural costs, and enabled integration across multiple acquired businesses. Key areas of impact included: • Driving enterprise cost optimization, delivering $6M+ in annual savings through standardization initiatives and renegotiated logistics and carrier contracts. • Leading three ERP implementations following acquisitions, ensuring business continuity, system integration, and operational scalability. • Developing and executing a long-term enterprise roadmap, aligning systems, data, and capabilities with strategic growth priorities. • Serving as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), elevating governance, risk management, and compliance with PCI-DSS, GDPR, and CTPAT, strengthening resilience and customer trust. • Founding PromoStandards, an industry-wide technology standards organization, collaborating with competitors, suppliers, and platforms to establish shared data and integration standards that improved interoperability and accelerated innovation across the promotional products ecosystem.

HIT Promotional Products Led enterprise IT operations and development teams, executing C-suite strategy through scalable systems, process improvement, and platform modernization. • Directed infrastructure and application development teams supporting core business operations. • Executed C-level strategic initiatives through custom development and implementation of ERP and CRM platforms. • Drove continuous improvement by introducing scalable solutions that improved reliability, efficiency, and operational visibility. • Partnered with executive leadership to align technology capabilities with evolving business needs and growth priorities.

Led network operations across a multi-site enterprise environment, supporting business-critical infrastructure and early organizational scale. • Designed, upgraded, and maintained network and systems infrastructure across multiple facilities within an Active Directory environment. • Supervised network administrators and help desk staff, providing early people-leadership experience. • Supported multi-location operations connected via MPLS, ensuring reliability and alignment with business requirements. • Introduced process improvements that increased system stability, support efficiency, and operational consistency. • Provided Tier III support for critical enterprise systems.

Supported enterprise IT operations and business systems within a multi-site Active Directory environment. • Assisted with portfolio-wide IT operations, infrastructure support, and equipment management. • Implemented a companywide document management system, improving order processing efficiency and operational consistency. • Supported deployment of business software applications that streamlined workflows across order and fulfillment operations.

Supported enterprise systems implementation and connectivity across multiple clinical locations in a regulated healthcare environment. • Assisted with the initial implementation of an electronic medical records (EMR) system. • Connected multiple sites via secure VPN and terminal services, supporting operational continuity and access control. • Operated within HIPAA-compliant standards, gaining early experience in regulated environments, data security, and risk management.

Provided technology implementation and optimization support for government and private-sector clients. • Supported enterprise network and systems deployments across multiple client environments. • Improved reliability and performance of business-critical systems supporting operations and data access. • Gained early exposure to client-facing delivery, requirements gathering, and operating in diverse organizational contexts.

M.A.

B.A

Computer Information Science Engineering