Who we are

Piero Alberici

After graduating from Warwick University in 1976 I began my selling/marketing career with United Biscuits. Over the next 15 years I worked my way steadily towards the role of Export Director for the Prestige Housewares group, ultimately responsible for managing 5 overseas subsidiaries and 200 staff.

This is the point at which my international experience commenced. Since then I have sold and marketed products in over 50 countries including all of Europe, Australia, Japan and the USA.

In 1999 I formed One Step Ahead, a consultancy with one simple message, to help my clients generate higher levels of profitable sales. This has been achieved in a variety of products from baby feeding bottles, to soft drinks through to educational hardware. I have developed a wide array of marketing campaigns, the most well-known focusing on the removal of Bisphenol A from baby feeding products in 2005/6.

In the last 5 years I have regularly lectured on export and business development techniques for government agencies such as UKTI and Business Link.

In 2012 I qualified as a humanistic integrative psychotherapist. As well as working with individual clients, I now use these new skills to undertake projects for organisations to revitalise their company energy and focus.

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Peter Kerr

I graduated in 1989 with an Economics degree from Kingston University. During my 3 years at college I had managed to completely avoid using a computer so it was big surprise to my contemporaries when I joined a software company called Donovan Data Systems. (DDS). DDS aggregates media research data to allow ad agencies to plan ad campaigns, place media bookings and analyse audience figures on behalf of their clients. DDS taught me the importance of having good data and also the need for people to fully understand why they were implementing a particular system in order for it to be used effectively.

I returned to the North East in 1993 working as a DDS consultant with some local agencies who needed support in migrating to a local server model rather than accessing a London based mainframe. I then sold pre-press systems for a local Apple dealer and ended up working for my largest client a Newcastle based agency called Robson Brown in 1995. I took the position of head of IT in 1999 and became the New Media Director in 2000.

The agency was slow to embrace digital media so I started a software development company called Ridge Media in 2002. We developed ad sold a number of products and specialised in creating bespoke intranet applications for large serviced office buildings in London. Notably we secured the intranet contract for the Gherkin the city headquarters of Swiss Re. We also installed touch screen navigation systems into Tower 42 and a building management intranet into Barclays new offices in Canary Wharf.
A difference in opinion over the strategic direction of the business led me to exit the business in 2005  to pursue a consultancy career, and which to the formation of 8020 Consultants.

Link to Peter's profile