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Mila’s heritage goes back to 1971 when Michael Davidsen and Lars Borup-Nielsen founded the business in Denmark and named it after themselves (MiLa).
45 years on, that heritage is more important to us than ever – not just because it helps to set us apart in what is a relatively young industry, but because it gives everyone who works at Mila a real sense of identity and belonging.
We talk in our advertising about Mila being ‘In our DNA’ and, as I celebrate 35 years at Mila next month, there can be little doubt that Mila is in mine. But, what’s perhaps more interesting is how many other people at Mila would genuinely say that it’s in their DNA too.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, I am Mila’s longest serving employee, but there are plenty of other people here (including my twin brother Robert) who have also been with the business for more than 25 years. In fact, a third of our employees have been here for more than 10 years. It’s a cliché of course to say that Mila feels like a family but it’s certainly no coincidence that we have plenty of parents and children working together here, as well as siblings and couples, and this year even welcomed a Mila baby.
I’m sure that lots of members of staff and certainly customers and industry colleagues wouldn’t recognise the Mila that I joined way back in 1981 though. The company had launched in the UK in 1980 but had first appeared at Interbuild in 1979 even though we didn’t actually have a UK premises. That came along the following year with our very first 8000 sq ft warehouse in Daventry and a team of just two – my father Ray and his PA Diana.
Even by the standards of the window industry in the early 1980s, growth was phenomenal. In 1981 when I joined, we had 8 staff and I was still driving our invoices to Luton airport every Friday evening to be flown back to Denmark because there were no such thing as faxes or emails but, by 1983, we had grown to 20 staff and just three years later in 1986, equipped with our very own Texas Green Screen computer, we had a workforce of 60 and were hitting what was then a record turnover of £1m a month.
We moved into the purpose built premises where we are still located in Daventry that year, and anyone who was around in the industry at that time will understand that it seemed perfectly normal to offer helicopter rides around the site to visitors during our Open Day. If I point out that our record turnover had doubled to £2m a month by 1988, it’s clear that those were very different times!
Obviously, the whole industry and Mila itself has evolved massively since the heady days of the 1980s. Now part of Arran Isle Group, we are a highly efficient, award winning global operation with an advanced supply chain manufacturing more than 50% of our own products and achieving a 99%+ OTIF.
Fundamentally though, I don’t believe that the core strength and values of the business have changed at all. What characterises Mila is that we always try to treat people in this industry in the way that we would want to be treated.
My father essentially created this business in the UK in the early days and it is his legacy, so it’s understandable perhaps that I feel fiercely protective of our reputation. But what makes me most proud perhaps looking back over 35 years is how many people at Mila feel the same.
Alongside senior figures such as Technical Manager Strafford Cooke, Head of Sales Vicki Sanders, Head of Marketing Sarah Gyde, Product Design Manager Paul Pearson and Supply Chain Director Oliver Burgess who between them have been with Mila for more than 75 years, there are people like Chris Harding, our on the road technician and Dave Horton our key accounts manager, who have each devoted their 30 year careers to Mila.
These people and so many like them have all helped to create the Mila family as it exists today and as younger people come through the business, we all work hard to ensure that the Mila DNA which has existed since 1971 remains as strong and important as ever.
