Growing Corra London: Meet Alex Shepherd
3 Min Read
Corra has just marked our 1 year anniversary of the opening of our London office, and we couldn’t be more excited about what the past year has brought. In addition to working on some great projects, like the launch for Faith Connexion on Magento 2.1 Enterprise Cloud Edition, we are also growing our UK team.
Our latest addition is Alex Shepherd, EMEA Commercial Director, who comes to Corra with more than 15 years of experience in retail and technology. For a little introduction, I sat down with Alex for a brief interview. Read on to learn some quick facts about Alex, and find out what’s on the horizon for Corra’s London office.
Can you talk about your experience in retail and ecommerce?
I started off with a job at an ad agency where I worked in tv advertising. I later progressed into a cross-media role, working in print, direct mail, you name it. I ended up working on a strategy and management team, where we had to determine how to most efficiently deploy the client’s media budget. As digial was starting to come to the fore, these things like PPC, SEO and display advertising were a big part of that.
Through this, I started to develop my own personal interest in ecommerce. I worked with a range of retailers, some of them big retailers, and it was interesting to see how many of them were really undervaluing the online experience and ecommerce site. They just didn’t see the importance. For them it was all about bricks and mortar.
People increasingly became more savvy about ecommerce, and I next had the opportunity to work for a Magento gold partner called Space 48. I worked in account management for that agency, and had a very successful couple of years. So I have a wide background in retail, from driving advertising, to driving bricks and mortar sales, and now to driving ecommerce.
What stood out to you about Corra that brought you to our team?
What I believe Corra offers is that while it’s a small team in the UK, it actually has a really sensible big business approach. Every employee of Corra has shouted it home to me and everyone seems to be playing for the same team. Everyone has made me feel so welcome, and made me feel like nothing is too much effort.
What are your goals for Corra’s London office?
I want to raise the profile of Corra in the UK. While Corra is incredibly well known in the US market, it is less so in the UK market. As an immediate goal, we need to raise our profile and educate customers that we’re here, we’re serious, and we’re invested in this market. I think there are some real differences between what we offer versus other agencies in the UK. For instance, we’ve done more Magento 2 work than anyone.
Ultimately, I want to significantly increase the London office’s contribution to as Corra as a business. World domination would be nice… but it’s a good start.
You actually spent some time in the States, in South Dakota. I have to ask… why there?
South Dakota, why not?! I joined a university that did an exchange program with a school in the US, and it was meant to be in New York state. A few weeks before we were set to fly out, they changed the plan to South Dakota. Long story short, I was up in South Dakota and it was a wicked time. I went snowmobiling, hunting, saw cowboys. It was very different from near Liverpool, where I grew up!
Get in touch with Alex for any of your ecommerce questions at alexs@corra.com.
Sasha Butkovich is Communications Marketing Manager at Corra. Managing the agency's communication, branding, PR and social strategies, Sasha focuses on developing engaging content for decision makers in the digital commerce industry. Sasha brings a background in copywriting and over five years in ecommerce marketing to her role at Corra.
Corra, a Publicis Sapient company, is the global commerce leader and SI helping brands and organizations grow by evaluating, building, and optimizing their digital commerce ecosystems. Our vast experience with composable and headless implementations speeds time-to-value and provides technical freedom to our clients. Our TotalCare managed services program provides gold-standard support, enhancements and ongoing commerce strategy. We are strategic thinkers, accomplished engineers, and award-winning experience designers. We believe outstanding customer experiences can’t exist without flawless technology, and that flawless technology is pointless without beautiful, human-centered design. Our clients are an integral part of our team. Together, we remove the obstacles that are limiting growth and discover new opportunities. We don’t rest until our clients achieve their full potential. Our clients’ KPIs are our KPIs. We have 20 years of experience in commerce technology, but we also know that customer expectations are constantly evolving. For this reason, we’ve built future-proof solutions and refined an agile execution process that helps our clients achieve more with less. As a Publicis Sapient company, Corra joins a global network spanning 20,000 people with 53 offices around the world enabling us to accelerate our clients’ businesses through designing and building the experiences and services their customers demand.
