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Jim Northrop believed that the direct promoting trade had the distinctive capability to positively affect individuals’s lives. For many years, he pushed the trade ahead serving as President and CEO of Immunotec and proprietor and CEO of Princess Home from 1994-2006. Jim was additionally a member of the Direct Promoting Schooling Basis and Direct Promoting Affiliation Board of Administrators, amongst different influential positions.
Jim was additionally a long-time trusted advisor and intuitive strategist to founders and executives by way of his Winfield Consulting agency, always empowering others. Jim handed away in August 2024 and left an affect that touched numerous lives, making him greater than worthy of this 12 months’s Legacy Award.
Rudy Revak, an trade legend in his personal ceremony as Founding father of Xyngular and Chairman of Pure Haven Necessities, met Jim once they have been on the board of the Direct Promoting Affiliation a long time in the past. The 2 turned good mates, and Jim went on to function a board member at two of Rudy’s corporations.
“He would at all times convey readability to no matter state of affairs we have been having on the time,” Rudy shared. “Jim was very sincere. He was the final word gents. In friendship or enterprise, Jim was at all times an honorable gentleman.”
Rudy shared Jim’s ardour for evolving the direct promoting trade and sustaining the connection side of the enterprise mannequin. “He really believed in our trade. We’re an trade that’s not nearly promoting merchandise. Primary, we each believed direct promoting is about altering individuals’s lives. That’s why we have been such good mates. He was a compassionate man. I miss Jim very a lot.”
A Information in Unprecedented Instances
Lynne Coté, present President and CEO of Princess Home, which Jim stewarded for 12 years, was a mentee of his. They met about 10 years in the past, earlier than Lynne joined the direct promoting trade. She got here to Princess Home in January 2020, only a few brief months earlier than the world went haywire.
Jim commonly suggested her by way of the pandemic with weekly one-on-one calls. Then, he carried out bi-weekly calls which included different trade leaders as effectively. “He determined to get an entire group of us collectively—completely different CEOs from completely different direct promoting corporations—and we might get on the telephone each Wednesday night time,” Lynne remembered. “None of us actually competed with one another. Jim didn’t cost any of us. We might simply share what was working, what wasn’t working. The world was clearly turned the other way up. And Jim drove that weekly assembly for nearly two years to assist us navigate by way of it.”
Lynne stated Jim was at all times a fantastic listener and a fantastic connector, serving to her construct invaluable and lasting relationships. She additionally drastically credit him for serving to the corporate shift primarily to the Hispanic market. “Jim was at all times encouraging you to pivot. He wasn’t afraid to be aggressive,” she defined.
A lot of their one-on-one calls wouldn’t even be about enterprise, however simply two mates speaking. “He actually, really cared,” she shared. Even a number of months after his passing, the appointment with Jim remains to be on her calendar. “He’s nonetheless in my calendar, each Friday at 11. I haven’t taken it off my calendar as a result of each Friday at 11, I nonetheless take into consideration Jim.’”
The Dynamic Duo
John Frederick served as Jim’s Vice President of Gross sales at Immunotec earlier than becoming a member of him at Winfield Consulting. For practically 15 years, they labored collectively as a workforce serving to greater than 70 shoppers all through the trade.
Jim’s focus was at all times on constructing and empowering the sphere. John says that when Jim owned Princess Home, he would host his personal social gathering each month simply to higher perceive what the sphere wanted. “He was an enormous advocate of the gross sales group. You don’t have a enterprise with out your gross sales group. They bring about you all of your clients and promote all of your merchandise.”
Jim was recognized for his sincere and direct method to consulting, at all times voicing his opinions primarily based on his personal experiences. John took over as President at Winfield in 2022 as Jim’s well being started to say no. “In a number of methods, Jim was the large brother I by no means had. He simply had a method of constructing your work higher.”
A Nice Dad, Too
Northrop’s three sons are actually of their 40s. Robert, Matt and Will say that whereas their dad was busy as a profitable government and trade chief, he at all times prioritized being there for them. “He clearly labored extremely exhausting,” Robert, the oldest brother, shared. “The trade and being profitable in it calls for a ton of time and power, however he was nonetheless a fantastic dad. The three of us have so many nice reminiscences of all of the occasions that we spent collectively.”
Jim concerned his sons within the enterprise in numerous methods, even working some positions within the company workplace and attending incentive journeys and conventions to get a firsthand expertise of their dad’s affect. “The primary time it actually dawned on me was at one of many conventions,” Will remembered about understanding his dad’s position. “I used to be sitting in a room, there was some buzz happening, and my dad was launched to the sphere. Everybody simply went loopy—they have been standing up and clapping.”
May also labored for Princess Home within the mail room when he was a freshman in faculty, studying the operations facet of the enterprise. Robert labored a pair summers within the IT division.
All Jim’s sons expressed that their dad’s expertise, conviction and talent to attach with persons are what made him distinctive and so profitable. “He had excessive confidence in himself and his steerage, and I feel that conviction helped him,” Will stated. “There’s a bent to sugar coat issues or be politically appropriate. I don’t know if it was the success that he had in his profession, or simply his innate confidence, however Dad by no means felt that he needed to comply with that path.”
Jim was a pioneer in making himself accessible to the sphere, commonly internet hosting his personal events to grasp what they wanted to achieve success. He additionally discovered methods to get different company leaders into the sphere to construct connections. “My dad could be actually efficient at looking for methods to convey individuals collectively that ordinarily won’t have a chance to satisfy,” Robert shared. His brother Matt agreed, “Dad at all times demonstrated his accessibility—he wasn’t in an ivory tower. He was at all times within the trenches.”
When requested what they want extra individuals knew about their dad, Matt talked about his humble beginnings. “One factor I don’t know if persons are conscious of, however my dad was a self-made man. He got here from very humble roots exterior of Binghamton, New York. The success that Dad present in his personal life, I actually suppose he was motivated to assist different individuals obtain that success as effectively.”
DSN reserves the Legacy Award for the true champions and trailblazers of direct promoting. It’s meant to honor the giants of the trade which have handed on—people who nonetheless have a lot to show us by way of their humble spirit and beneficiant nature. Jim Northrop’s enduring legacy and life effectively lived will encourage many generations to return, and for that purpose we’re honored to bestow the Legacy Award to his household.
From the Could/June 2025 situation of Direct Promoting Information journal.
