Richard Vercesi
Chief Executive Officer
Richard successfully completed a BA (Hons) Business Studies (2:1) at the University of Greenwich. Richard’s recruitment career began directly after graduating in 1998, when he spent three successful years covering the Oracle application market. In 2001, he moved into the world of SAP, joining Red Commerce as one of the first recruitment consultants on the contract team.
Richard progressed quickly to sales management where he gained a deep understanding of Red’s business and the European SAP ecosystem in contract and permanent businesses. In December 2005 after participating in Red Commerce’s MBO, Richard became Contract Sales Director and subsequently overall Sales Director. Since this appointment he has played a fundamental role in driving the business forward with his competitive, energetic and passionate nature leading to his appointment as CEO in January 2008.
A keen and committed sportsman who enjoys tennis, squash, golf, skiing, and water skiing, football has always been his passion. Richard has competed in semi-professional football for the last 15 years, taking the pitch for Welling United in the old GM Vauxhall Conference league for three seasons.
Richard lives with his wife Alex, along with his son and baby daughter.
Stephen Lawrence
Chief Operating Officer
Specialising in financial and operational management, Stephen studied a Bachelor of Accountancy at Glasgow University and is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. Stephen joined Red Commerce three years ago. Prior to accepting his current role as CFO, Stephen’s leadership positions include Director of Accenture Marketing Sciences and Finance and Operations Director of Quantum International Limited. He has held a number of board positions in venture capital backed businesses including: Media Audits Group, James Gilbert, and Language Line.
Stephen has competed for Scotland and Britain in Fencing at international level. As a member of the Scottish sabre team he took part in two Commonwealth Championships, and in 1994 he won gold!
Stephen lives with his partner and two children in St. Albans.
Alan Hunt
Business Development Director
Alan has over 20 years experience working for global leaders in the Business Application Software and Consulting industries and has started up specialist consulting firms. He has been exposed to SAP for about 11 years and previously been Director of two SAP consulting partner firms. Alan has an extensive network of contacts across the SAP and broader IT and consulting markets. He started his career implementing business applications, moved into consulting and has been a high achieving Business development professional for the last 17 years.
Alan joined Red to be part of the management team following its change in ownership in late 2005. He knew Red Commerce well, having been a director of one of Red’s clients. Alan decided to join Red Commerce in preference to the of option of being UK Head of SAP for an International Second Tier Systems Integration organisation due to his belief in Red’s ability to embrace and exploit the talent in the SAP Ecosystem, in a managed and organized way, and to bring significant benefit to SAP’s customers.
Alan is a fiercely competitive sportsman and spent ten years playing in Britain’s Professional Basketball League and over 20 years in total in National Level Competition. He holds British League Championship and British Cup Winners medals, and three National Championship Play-Off Runners-up medals. He also has coached three different teams to promotion in National Competitions including winning the National League Division Two Play off Final and being selected Coach of the Year for this achievement.
Alan is married and has two daughters, one son, and one granddaughter.
Massimo Franzese
Director of RedSolution
Massimo's SAP experience goes back 15 years. He has gone through the ranks from software developer, up to project manager and pre-sales thanks to 100% client reference ability and word of mouth about the projects he delivered. Once becoming one of the top SAP IS Retail and AFS experts, he decided to change sides and joined a retail business as senior IT manager and continued up to IT director in his next assignment.
At that point he felt he needed to expand his horizon and went off to implement Oracle, Microsoft and other vendors solution and even managed a real estate development project to prove his problem solving skills can be applied to any business issue.
Massimo had already experimented the same approach in his career managing directly teams of consultants reporting to him and when Richard (CEO Red Commerce) proposed for him to start up the consulting arm of Red Commerce, RedSolution, this was well in line with Massimo’s beliefs.
In addition to SAP and IT skills, Massimo is a Prince, ITIL, MSP certified and former PMI member. He also holds an MBA from Warwick University in addition to a higher degree in Electronics from the University of Pisa.
Massimo has been a keen rower and won gold and silver medals at the Italian University Championships and now teaches scuba diving in a leading club in London over weekends.
Nick Savage
Practice Director -
Contract Sales
Nick gained a BA (Hons) in Business Management from Brunel University before beginning his career in SAP recruitment with Inline KPG (acquired by Spring plc) in 1996 as a Junior Contract Sales Consultant. Moving to IT Link (acquired by MPS Group plc.), where he set up their Latin American Division and progressed through the ranks to become the European Sales Manager of the SAP Division, running sales teams across their UK, Dutch, Belgian and German operations.
Thereafter, Nick was a Director of the SAP BI Consulting Division at Sapient Corporation, with the objective of blending the Sapient consultancy pedigree with a new SAP NetWeaver and BI value proposition to the UK and European market.
2006 bought about a new challenge and Nick was attracted to the vision and ethos of Red Commerce and joined as the Contract Sales Director. Nick’s market knowledge, coupled with his positive and driven personality, has allowed him to be a key influence in further developing Red’s unique culture. His energy and commitment have improved Red’s valued service offerings, which are unique to the SAP market.
Nick is a competitive sportsman who loves to play golf, squash and football. He is an avid Arsenal FC season ticket holder and has an interest in boxing, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), reading and film. He lives with his wife, Sarah, and their two children in Hertfordshire.
Mat Roche
Practice Director - Permanent Sales
Originally from Leicester, Mat moved to London in 1992 to attend University where he achieved his BA (Hons) in French and Industrial Psychology at University College London (UCL). His recruitment career started in 1997 at SThree where he joined as a graduate recruitment consultant. Mat founded the company’s first International division trading in the Netherlands, opened the Belgium and France businesses, and started up two specialist recruitment divisions focusing on the Oil and Gas and the Pharmaceuticals market in the UK.
After eleven and half years, Mat left SThree to join Computer People, a division of Adecco Professional Staffing, as a Board Director. Having previously worked with Richard Vercesi, Mat opted for the innovation and entrepreneurialism of Red Commerce towards the end of 2009 accepting the newly created Practice Director role.
During his career, Mat has made over 450 placements as a Recruitment Consultant winning numerous Top Performer awards as well as holding key managerial positions at board level within two of the UK’s leading IT generalist staffing agencies.
Outside of recruitment, Mat enjoys spending time attending a multitude of different sporting events including football, cricket, rugby, F1, and tennis. He is also a lifelong Liverpool FC supporter, having seen his first game at Anfield aged four and is a keen player of squash to club level.
Mat has been married to Caroline for five years and is father to the 8 months old Max . He is half French, with family roots in Le Mans.
Andy Duke
Permanent Sales Director - Germany
Andy has nearly twelve years experience in recruitment. After completing a BA in Modern European Studies at University of Nottingham, Andy started his career with International Press, worked throughout Europe with a boutique finance and strategy consulting firm, and was an internal recruiter for Telecity supporting activities across Europe.
Andy took a career break to pursue a professional rugby career playing in the English premiership for 18 months. Realising he would never play for England, he quickly returned to his career in recruitment joining Red Commerce in September 2001.
Andy speaks fluent French and intermediate German, moving to Koln to lead the German Permanent team in 2007. Andy’s interests are rugby, skiing, snowboarding, and traveling around Europe. He lives in Koln with his wife and three children.
