Shure & Company brings a broad entrepreneur’s perspective to strategy, growth, sales architecture, product development, profitability and cost engineering, sourcing, supply chain and logistics, channel management and e-commerce, international market penetration, start-ups, mergers & acquisitions, business sales, and operating decisions.
Thomas S. Shure is an entrepreneur, business consultant, and author who has led an independent consulting practice for the past six years. Through Shure & Company, he advises principals and executives on growth, strategy, sales architecture, product invention and development, sourcing and manufacturing, importing and logistics, channel management and e-commerce, operations, mergers & acquisitions, business sales, and commercialization.
His perspective reflects firsthand experience across multiple businesses. Shure founded and sold T.S. Shure, an educational toy and children’s publishing company. In China, Shure established and operated three trading offices responsible for procurement, sourcing, logistics, and quality control, and later established and operated a manufacturing facility. He also founded Thomas S. Shure & Company Invention & Design, an invention and product development company; founded Shure International, an international sourcing company; and pursued real estate ventures involving commercial and industrial property.
His product development, design, and invention experience spans hundreds of consumer products in toys, games, stationery, and children’s publishing, including electronic and mechanical patents as well as extensive work in graphics and illustration. His broader commercial experience includes manufacturing, importing, sourcing, sales, distribution, e-commerce, licensing, mergers & acquisitions, business sales, and company building.
Shure & Company provides direct, senior-level counsel to executives and principals confronting commercial, strategic, and operating decisions.
Consumer products; invention, product development, design and manufacturing effectuation; sales architecture, sales organization, compensation and incentive design; multi-channel distribution strategy and implementation; international market development and penetration; profitability and cost engineering; start-ups and new ventures; mergers & acquisitions and business sales; Asian sourcing and supply chain; commercial and industrial real estate development.
Strategy matters most when it survives contact with customers, costs, competitors, employees, suppliers, capital, and time.
Tom grew up in downtown Chicago at the crossroads of the Great Lakes and the Chicago River.
Entrepreneurship started early. Years before building companies, Shure was already finding things to sell—lemonade, rabbit-foot keychains, and American flags—and even obtained a City of Chicago peddler’s license. As a college student, he imported a container of GoBot watches. The scale changed; the impulse to identify an opportunity and translate it into a business prevailed.
Shure was hired by Alan Hassenfeld, then Chairman and CEO of Hasbro, while attending graduate business school, after which he launched his entrepreneurial career.
Shure attended Claremont McKenna College, earned his B.A. with honors in History from Northwestern University, and an M.B.A. from Boston University. His writing explores business strategy, technology and business, human behavior and organizations, influence and selling, growth strategies, and business history.
A sourcing problem may actually be a margin problem. A sales problem may be a product problem. A growth opportunity may create an operating constraint. Experience across different functions and businesses helps reveal the connections.
That is the perspective Shure & Company brings to advisory work today.