How a sharpened focus on the market let Terri Alpert carve out new niches for her two catalog businesses, Uno Alla Volta and Cooking Enthusiast

By Mark Del Franco

A high-energy CEO, Alpert remains a true entrepreneur who’s always looking three steps ahead. Her co-captain and brother-in-law Jay Alpert, Terri’s partner and the company’s president, helps navigate the changing current.

“Back in 2000 or 2001, when I was bemoaning that we had created all this infrastructure for a flawed business model — a business built on selling other people’s brands,” Terri Alpert explains. “Jay made the two of us take a closer look at our core competencies. He showed me that our infrastructure and our catalog expertise, that didn’t exist back in 1993, could lead to a new business model if only we designed it from a blank sheet of paper.”