New starters Archives - Bluestep Solutions

Yes, that’s right, we’re at it again. Meet the latest Bluestepper, Olivia!

Here at Bluestep, we’re always seeking to grow our team with people who are great at what they do and full of personality.

The opportunity arose for a new Account Manager, and we knew Liv was right for the position as soon as we met her!

Her love of a challenge, excellent ability to lead projects and bubbly nature made Liv the perfect fit for the role and she has already slotted into the office perfectly.

With previous experience in project management, both locally and across the pond in the USA, we’re excited to see the amazing work she’ll help to produce here at Bluestep for our range of clients.

Outside of the office, Liv is pony-mad. She trains and competes horses and is currently training to become a qualified BHS riding instructor! When she’s not in the saddle, Liv is rowing for the Northampton team or having a cheeky cocktail with friends.

Find out more about Liv here, and to find out about our latest vacancies, get in touch! We’d love to hear from you.

Say hello to the latest Bluesteppers!

We got January off to a great start here at Bluestep by welcoming some great new team members. Meet Alex and Claudia!

Alex

Alex is our latest addition to the ever-expanding web development team here at Bluestep. Previously leading all things web for a photography company, Alex joins us with a great deal of experience and enthusiasm for the field.

Originally from the University of Northampton, his Media & Web Design course sparked his interest in the industry, and he hasn’t looked back since!

When he’s not making websites look beautiful, Alex loves gaming, comics and Netflix marathons.

Claudia

Claudia is our new digital marketing executive, working with clients on everything from SEO to social media advertising.

With a variety of marketing experience under her belt, from cosmetic companies to wedding venues, Claudia is a great addition to Bluestep. Once a De Montfort University student, she achieved a first-class degree in Advertising & Marketing Communications.

In her spare time Claudia loves horse-riding, her French bulldog and all things fashion.

2018 is going to be a great year, we can just tell!

Interested in joining our team? Get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re at it again. And this time we’re expanding our marketing team with our new Marketing Manager, Paul!

We’re on a bit of a roll at the minute with all these new starters, but with every new starter joining it means our team grows even larger, developing our skillset and improving our offerings to old and new clients.

Lucky for us, Paul popped up at just the right time as we’d been on the hunt for a Marketing Manager for a while to help guide and lead us Bluesteppers through an innovative and thriving digital market.

Paul hasn’t always worked in marketing though, as he originally had a keen interest in motorsports and worked in engineering for F1, developing engines for Jaguar Racing. Deciding to take things up a gear and chase his creative dreams, Paul left F1 behind and joined Volkswagen where he found himself a creative marketing role, allowing him to use showcase his many other talents.

After a long stint working for the car giant, Paul took a different route away from the world of motoring and joined BBH advertising agency, where he would be working with an eclectic range of clients to deliver some major advertising campaigns.

When Paul isn’t working, he opts for a more fast-paced and adrenaline-fuelled lifestyle by showing off his snowboarding skills on the slopes and jet setting across the world. As a keen traveller, Paul has a pretty impressive passport with a collection stamps from the likes of Thailand, Africa, Mexico, Sri Lanka and plenty more. Fancy squeezing us in your suitcase next time?

Paul’s down-to-earth manner and great sense of humour make him the perfect fit for Bluestep and we can’t wait to see what the future holds now that Paul has joined!

Yep, we’ve bagged ourselves another new starter and this time it’s in the form of enthusiastic and experienced Dario!

We had a hunch from his interview that Dario was going to take the charity team by storm and fit in effortlessly here at Bluestep, and guess what – he has! It’s only been two weeks and we can already see the value that confident and driven Dario will bring to the team.

Originally studying a diploma in sports development fitness and coaching at college, Dario decided to jump ship and quench his undeniable thirst for sales by moving to Spain to work as a club promoter. Returning to England, Dario jumped straight in at the deep end and has been working as a Senior Negotiator for an acclaimed estate agent for the past 4 years, with a recognised talent for smashing targets out the window.

Born in Croatia, Dario likes to head back to the homeland every year and is a dedicated veteran of Hideout Festival, hosted on the party island of Pag. To get himself hyped for work, Dario enjoys listening to motivational speakers like Tony Robbins, meaning he’s always on the ball!

Welcome to the team, Dario!

Aron is the newest addition to the Bluestep studio, joining us as a fully-fledged web designer. Affectionately nicknamed the ‘Unicorn’ by his fellow designees, Aron comes equipped with the knowledge and skills to design and build iconic websites from scratch. So when did it all start for Aron

Cast your mind back to 2007, when Aron began writing code and building websites. A broken leg left his curiosity festering and after getting hold of a beat-up laptop, he began to create his first web pages. After much hard work and practice he went on to building websites for cold, hard cash. Fast forward ten years and he is now knocking out large scale e-commerce sites, designing and building software and perhaps most significantly, revamping the Bluestep website (watch this space!).

After running his own business, Aron missed the creative working environment and having that day-in day-out inspiration from colleagues. Coming to Bluestep has excited him after seeing its potential and the rapid rate at which it is flourishing. As a true design advocate, Aron believes that it’s about more than just how things look but rather, how things work – a principle applied in everything he produces. We have faith that Aron’s approach is going to do good things for our clients and their objectives, and we can’t wait to see more of his work.

When not tapping away at his keyboard, Aron is either teaching himself some tunes on the Ukulele, having a beer with friends, or enjoying the great outdoors.
Welcome aboard, Aron!

Say hello to Sarah and Matt. More new starters here at Bluestep this month. It’s getting a bit cosy up here in the accounts team, but we can’t complain with these lovely new faces!

Meet Matt

Our budding charity department were on the lookout for a fresh, energetic and motivated addition to the team and after meeting with us just once, Matt was quickly snapped up to fill the role! Matt showed us he’s a perfect fit for Bluestep with his friendly and outgoing personality, and history in sales and the CST service.

Sporty Matt spent his Uni days studying Sports Psychology at Leeds Met, and the Chelsea supporter enjoys his footy, betting and dogs. We think the other lads will be extremely glad of the change in conversation, in what has always been our ‘female dominated’ sector!

Meet Sarah

With our Outdoor and Education sector taking off, we were crying out for a talented account manager to come on board and help juggle the mountains of orders, client relationship and business growth. Sarah was the perfect candidate after showing us her effervescent personality, natural people skills and experience in retail and brand development.

Super talented Sarah began her career path seeking bright lights and fame in London studying Musical Theatre, and although she’s reluctant to show us, she’s actually a pretty good singer! (Karaoke for this year’s team building activity?) After chasing the Beyonce dream she was soon snapped back down to earth when she found love in Northampton and is now a proud Mum, wife and trusty Bluestepper!

We’re struggling to keep up with how fast Bluestep is growing at the moment. From new starters, and new clients, to a second office in London – safe to say it’s been a big year for us.
The growth of the business has naturally impacted all of our sectors and we’re seeing each section of the business really come into its own.

At the start of every year, we tend to meticulously plan every last detail down to how many ink cartridges we plan to use! Although we never could’ve predicted the growth we have seen this year… and after we ran away with ourselves recruiting, we had nowhere to seat everyone, doh!

Working with what we’ve got, we’ve turned the office pretty much upside down to utilise every last corner and wall, but when we heard our neighbours next door were moving onto pastures new, we jumped at the opportunity to extend our office further into this beautiful location!

Ideas are already flying around about how the new space will look, but it will all start with knocking the design studio wall through to next door, introducing a whole new office – this is where the charity team will be based. We will then introduce additional meeting rooms, and utilise the rest of the ground floor to create our brand new design studio – complete with breakout areas, bean bags and other quirky add-ons to increase creative stimulation and flow.

Anyone who knows us will be well aware of how much we pride ourselves on our beautiful, countryside location down at Blisworth Hill Farm, so when we heard the equally picturesque Stone Barn – adjacent to our existing office – was up for grabs, we saw it as the perfect opportunity to embed ourselves further into this perfect location. Call it wishful thinking, but we are hoping to have the work complete by Christmas!

Keep an eye on our blogs for more updates and progress pictures.

Don’t panic – our lovely, scenic Northamptonshire office will still be here, but following recent expansion of the company and our evolving client base, we noticed a need for a London presence.

Bluestep will be branching out with a London premise, allowing us to recruit some fabulous new people and making it easier for our London based clients to meet up for coffee, lunch, cake or of course, to discuss exciting projects! Anyone who has worked with Bluestep knows we do whatever it takes to suit our clients’ needs and be as available and efficient as possible – it’s also a big plus that we’re going to be located in the middle of London business hot spot, Bank.

Our new space will be our third UK premises, which is pretty exciting considering Bluestep began at kitchen table (but let’s save that for another blog article!).

We’re so excited at how quickly things are growing and moving at Bluestep and the exciting new clients we are working with. This is a sure sign of big things yet to come.

We’ll be in from 1st Oct so if you fancy meeting up for cake and catch up get in touch and we’ll be happy to give you the grand tour!

Joining us fresh faced from the University of Northampton, Andrew is another local talent we’ve managed to snap up for a 3 month internship. We’re excited to see what more Andrew has to offer here, since his first week has been a real chance for him to show off his talents and skills after gaining his degree in BA Graphic Communication.

Bluestep regularly keeps contact with the University on Northampton and we’re always head hunting for raw talent – Andrew fits the bill perfectly which is why we approached him following the University’s degree show.

Andrew was drawn to Bluestep by the company ethos; the enthusiastic team and the fact that the work we produce can go on to have such an impact on individuals and establishments across the country.

A man of many talents, Andrew is a keen cook and actually chose graphic design over cooking as his specialism! Also an avid football fan, he is season ticket holder at Northampton Town where he regularly supports his local team. He does however, make sure he finds the time to dedicate to his friends and family – be that enjoying a BBQ, watching films or catching up over a drink.
We think Andrew is fitting in just nicely and we can’t wait to see what more he has to offer.

Meet David, the newest addition the thriving Bluestep design team! David joins Bluestep armed with 25 years experience in the design industry and with many strings to his bow; we can’t wait to see how his expertise will take Bluestep to the next level.

Things are changing quite rapidly at Bluestep, and we strive to keep our services up to date so that we are always on hand to exceed our clients’ expectations. Our studio’s capacity was filling up fast, and there was an evident need for a senior figure to help manage workloads and offer creative direction when needed. We want to be in a position to offer our clients only the best, and we believe that with a solid team of talented and experienced individuals we’ll be able to do just that. With a Studio Manager, our studio can continue their fantastic work in the most efficient manner. That’s where David comes in, and with his solid background in design, animation and photography we can’t wait to utilise his talents to maximise the potential of our design department.

Anyone who knows Bluestep will know we’re far from a boring bunch, and personality is at the forefront of everything we do. We’re thinking David will gel quite nicely with the team as he hopes to carry Bluestep to the next level with a sense of humour and a smile on his face.

When he’s not manning the Bluestep studio, no doubt he’ll be busy playing guitar in his mod band; photographing bands, mod weekenders, northern soul all-nighters and hot rod shows (call it sub culture photography); chasing after his kids, or watching Newcastle United all that way up north!

Welcome to the team, David.

When the Northampton School of Arts cordially invited Bluestep for an evening of creative exhibition, we jumped straight on the band wagon. Each year the University hosts The Degree Show at the Avenue Campus, and each year we’re lucky enough to have the opportunity to scout out the raw and rising talent amongst the students within the design, illustration and graphics specialisms.

Attending the opening night on Friday 10th June, excitement and anticipation was thick in the air amongst those showcasing their projects to the public, but to be frank we thought that all of the work we saw was not only incredibly creative, but inspiring also. The evening took us through some intriguing exhibitions and art installations, with pieces from fashion and textiles to moving image and animation; giving us some ideas of new skills we can adopt and directions we can take ourselves in.
Amongst those from the agency who attended the evening, we had Tiffany, Ollie and Rebecca from our design department along with Ben, Bluestep’s MD. The exhibition setting brought back some familiar memories for our own designer Rebecca who was snapped up by Bluestep shortly before her own installation at Northampton Uni just a mere two years ago.

We are always hugely keen to hear from local students and to see their work, so if you’re looking to enhance your portfolio with internship opportunities, would love to hear from you!

If you are you interested in going along to the exhibition yourself for an afternoon of creative insight, you can book a space here. Tickets for the show are free and the installation runs up until Sunday 19th June.

With Bluestep seeing such a rapid growth and increase in workload, especially in recent months, it’s only natural our team should grow to facilitate every area of our clients’ wants and needs. With five new faces joining the team in the last couple of months, allow us to introduce our newest recruits.

Meet Shanice

Graduating from De Montfort University with a first class degree in Creative Management and Marketing, Shanice quickly snapped up a social media executive role. Running social media campaigns, advertisements and developing content plans for some big well known clients, Shanice took to the industry like a duck to water, before giving in to the urge to flee the pond and do some travelling overseas…

After spending some months in the most beautiful areas of the world including Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand, Shanice was soon drawn back to her homeland where she sealed the deal on an account management role as part of our healthcare team. When not in the office, shopaholic Shanice can be found in Zara buying shoes, eating doughnuts or in the gym!

Meet Alice

Another victim of the travel bug, Alice joins Bluestep armed with an impressive worldly wisdom as a result of travelling South America, South East Asia and New Zealand and Fiji. After graduating from Leeds Metropolitan University, she also lived in Australia for a year, before setting up base in London where she worked as a Lettings Negotiator at a popular London Estate agent. With her effervescent personality and cast iron work ethic, it was clear that Alice had a talent for sales. After experiencing the fast paced London life style Alice wanted to continue to pursue her passion for sales in a less corporate and more creative environment. Enter Bluestep.

Alice has settled right in to her role on the Charity team looking after clients such as Alzheimer’s Research UK, Crohns and Colitis UK and Sue Ryder. When she’s not working you’ll find her cooking, out socialising or engrossed in an episode of Game of Thrones!

Meet Josh

Account manager Josh comes to Blue Step with a colourful background, and his cracking fashion sense isn’t an accident…he actually worked in fashion for five years prior to Bluestep! Running and managing a women’s clothing boutique for three years, it didn’t take long for Josh to put his experience into action setting up his own fashion agency – Mono Fashion.

However, a craving for new challenges and financial stability led Josh to seek out a career change and with a background in people, sales and creativity; Josh is an invaluable asset to the Bluestep charity team. Not only a fashion guru, he also plays semi professional football in his spare time. Josh is passionate about growing Blue Step, and aspires to become a central part of Bluestep’s core team, using his wide skill set to grow relationships and sell our services. He also hopes to travel the world one day with his fiancé by his side…sounds like he’s got the right idea!

Meet Nikki

Nikki joins the team with a background in creative account management, a degree in English and a lasting love of writing compelling copy. Another one running out of passport pages, Nikki travelled Australia after graduating from Coventry University, and although she detests the cold weather, homesickness soon brought her back to the UK where she went on to take a CIM marketing course alongside an account executive role. Armed with newly learnt skills under her belt she was oh so quickly snapped up by Bluestep to take on (and smash the target out of) a new challenge, helping clients and Bluestep maximise their marketing efforts.

Nikki is as determined and competitive in the workplace as she is in the gym, with stamina to hold the plank for six minutes (and PLUS) this is no mean feat to her drive to deliver outstanding marketing and communication campaigns. Also a keen baker, she has been feeding the team with sweet treats since her arrival (keep them coming) and has settled into the team very nicely indeed.