Louise determined to make it on her own
Nov 28 2007 by Chris Knox, The Journal
THE daughter of the founder of one of the region’s biggest bakery firms has launched an on-line designer gift store to prove she can run her own business.
Louise Milligan, daughter of Milligan’s bakery founder Lloyd Milligan, left her job as operations manager at the family-run firm to launch Xclusivetreats.co.uk
The website provides a one-stop shop for small boutique firms to sell their designer gifts and adventure experiences, with Louise hoping to more than treble its size by next year.
She said: “I got the impression while working at Milligan’s that people thought I was relying on my family name in order to get ahead and were not recognising the hard work I was putting in. That’s why I wanted to prove that I could run a business on my own terms, without any help from my family.”
The website has already attracted 38 suppliers and Louise hopes to increase this by more than 100 in the New Year and to establish a dedicated sales team.
The majority of adventure experience firms featured on the site are based in the North-East, including Northumbria Flying School and Durham’s Skydive Academy, which provide Louise with a commission for every sale.
Louise graduated from Napier University in Edinburgh in 1999 where she studied business studies before taking up a number of positions in the Scottish capital at the Royal Bank of Scotland, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Standard Life.
After travelling Europe and Australia, she returned to the North-East to join Milligan’s in 2003. While at the company, Louise completed a post-graduate degree in Human Resources Management at Northumbria University, which she used to introduce new HR procedures at the bakery.
“I was able to draw on the advice of my dad and a number of his friends but was clear that I wanted it to be my business, using my money. It is true that my family name has helped me attract so many suppliers to the site in such a short space of time, but I hope to expand the business by myself,” she said.
Louise believes the gift experience side of the business will help it grow quickly and that it represents a relatively new market in the North-East.
“It is true that there are competitors in the market such as Red Letter Days, but their activities tend to ignore the North-East area. I hope to use the excellent facilities in the region to grow the business and provide customers with access to exciting gifts”, she said.
