Thomas is an industrial sourcing and marketing platform that helps North American manufacturers, distributors, and service providers showcase their offerings while enabling buyers to search more than 500,000 supplier profiles. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Thomas General Manager Rachel Zepernick to learn more.
Rachel Zepernick’s Background
When asked about her background and the experiences that prepared her to lead Thomas, Zepernick shared:
I’ve always been drawn to solving problems, building and breaking things, understanding how they work, and making them more efficient. It’s a passion that shaped the trajectory of my career.
Before joining Thomas in 2025, I led growth strategy for Angi’s Enterprise sales team, driving improvements to scale our business with large home service providers. Prior to that, I spent almost a decade at L.E.K. Consulting, dedicated to the industrials vertical, where I focused on building growth strategies and investment plans for dozens of clients.
When I became General Manager of Thomas, I saw an extraordinary opportunity to lead a brand that has been the backbone of American manufacturing for nearly 130 years. There is so much opportunity to leverage technology and automation to modernize the buyer and supplier experience, better serve American manufacturers, facilitate connections, and strengthen our domestic supply chain.
Rachel Zepernick’s Responsibilities
When asked about her primary responsibilities as General Manager, Zepernick explained:
As General Manager, I advance Thomas’ mission to digitally transform industrial sourcing, making it faster, smarter, and more transparent for engineers, procurement teams, and business leaders. This includes having a direct view of Thomas’ business and financial performance while also leading day-to-day operations and driving longer-term planning.
Externally, I represent Thomas as a thought leader in industrial innovation, speaking on workforce development, the future of the manufacturing workforce, digital transformation, and the importance of building resilient supply chains.
Visiting A Client Facility
When asked about her favorite memory from working at Thomas, Zepernick recalled:
Last summer, I had the opportunity to visit a long-time client’s metal lamination facility in New Jersey. Seeing its operations firsthand, walking the production floor, exploring the various applications of each product, and collaborating on future growth opportunities reinforced how meaningful our client partnerships truly are.
Moments like that bring our work to life and demonstrate the large role we can play in supporting our clients’ continued success.
We also met a high school intern participating in a rotational program at the facility while we were there. I love seeing other industry participants investing in local talent and actively helping cultivate the next generation of professionals entering manufacturing.
Industrial Sourcing And Marketing
When describing Thomas’ core products and features, Zepernick detailed:
Thomas is a leading industrial sourcing and marketing platform that empowers North American manufacturers, distributors, and service providers to grow by showcasing their offerings on thomasnet.com.
We also offer a range of strategic digital marketing solutions through our manufacturing-focused digital marketing agency, Thomas Marketing Services. Buyers can explore detailed supplier profiles for more than 500,000 suppliers on our platform, making it easy to find and evaluate partners, compare products and services, and contact suppliers directly.
Responding To Tariff Uncertainty
When asked about recent challenges in the manufacturing sector and how Thomas has responded, Zepernick noted:
When tariffs were announced last year, U.S. manufacturing moved to the center of the conversation. Manufacturers faced a volatile mix of uncertainty, rising material and operational costs, and supply chain disruptions, all while still needing to remain agile and competitive.
With more than 125 years of experience supporting industrial buyers and suppliers, Thomas was built for moments like this. We help manufacturers move faster by providing visibility and tools to identify qualified North American suppliers, accelerating sourcing decisions, and building greater supply chain resilience.
As a result, tariffs became a growth catalyst for Thomas and our customers as companies prioritized expanding their sourcing partners.
Major Company Milestones
When asked about Thomas’ most significant milestones, Zepernick said:
Founded in 1898, Thomas began as “The Thomas Register of American Manufacturers,” a multivolume directory of industrial product information covering distributors, manufacturers, and service companies in the United States.
For more than a century, the Thomas Register served as a source of truth on where to source U.S. industrial products and services, along with comprehensive specifications and detailed product information from thousands of manufacturers.
A major milestone came in 2006, when the company stopped publishing its print directories and transitioned fully to a digital platform. That shift modernized access to supplier information and set the foundation for expanding core listings by adding richer digital resources like online catalogs, computer-aided design drawings, news, press releases, and blogs.
Another pivotal moment occurred in 2021, when Xometry, the leading AI-native marketplace, acquired Thomas to expand the digital innovation movement in manufacturing. Together, Xometry and Thomas expanded their reach across buyers and sellers and strengthened the digital marketplace experience with more comprehensive end-to-end services and products at the ready.
We also have many case studies of Thomas connections leading to long-term partnerships, and each one feels like a significant milestone. One example occurred in the early 2000s, when Sara Blakely leveraged the Thomas Network to find the supplier that built the prototype of the first Spanx shapewear.
These stories of real companies starting and growing with Thomas are why we do what we do every day.
Technology Evolution
When discussing how Thomas’ technology has evolved since the company launched, Zepernick described:
Before phone directories like the Yellow Pages existed, there was the Thomas Register for industrial sourcing in 1898. For more than a century, industrial professionals across North America and beyond referred to it as “the purchasing bible” and “the bible of industry.”
At its peak, the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers was a 34-volume buying guide covering manufacturing products and services, having grown throughout the years to accommodate emerging industries. As demand for manufacturing resources increased throughout the decades, the Register evolved as well, adding phone and fax numbers to listings and incorporating detailed product and specification information provided by manufacturers.
By 1995, the Thomas Register could be accessed on the Internet. By 2006, publication of the print Thomas Register was discontinued, marking the culmination of a decade-long shift to the Internet as the new source of information.
The most recent evolution of Thomas has been the rollout of its performance-based advertising model and Smart Search technology to improve how manufacturers reach high-intent customers.
This new capability lets buyers, who increasingly need to match precise capabilities with a fragmented supplier base, run detailed, multi-attribute searches using natural language rather than navigating predefined categories. Thomas has always leveraged the latest technology to best serve the industry, and it will continue to do so.
Thomas’ Differentiators
When asked what differentiates Thomas from its competition, Zepernick emphasized:
With a history spanning more than a century, Thomas has one of the most comprehensive databases of verified American industrial suppliers. Today, Thomas has more than 500,000 in-depth supplier profiles for users to compare products and services, connect with suppliers, and build the world.
Thomas also leverages its more than 100 years in the industry to empower suppliers, distributors, and manufacturers to enhance their visibility through custom advertising and marketing plans, thereby improving their online presence and generating more relevant traffic to their websites.
Future Goals
When discussing Thomas’ future goals, Zepernick concluded:
Our core mission is to be the trusted engine that enables meaningful business connections within our industry. In an effort to do so, Thomas will launch a series of enhancements focused on user experience and search relevance.
These improvements are designed to better serve our buyer base and create stronger, more effective connections between buyers and suppliers.
We’re also focused on leveraging automation to improve data quality at scale, process efficiency, and speed to market across all our digital marketing offerings.
In addition, we will continue introducing new products and innovative formats aimed at solving key sourcing challenges, helping buyers confidently build their shortlists while connecting high-intent, relevant buyers with suppliers who can meet their specific needs.
