lynzi leroy is
relentlessly equitable
Lynzi Leroy was fed up with seeing chain after chain pop up on Scottish high streets. She found injustice in the small selection of locally made products being cashed in on by big businesses, with very few pennies ending up in local makers’ pockets. Lynzi knew there was a more equitable way forward to boost the local economy and support Scotland’s art and culture scene.
Lynzi’s moral compass was fully formed as far back as her early childhood. She recalls that even in nursery, she wasn’t one to sit back and let injustices happen. Whether it was another child being left out by the group or a friend getting in trouble unfairly, you bet Lynsey wasn’t going down quietly. “If I saw somebody being mistreated, by God you didn’t want to take me on.” From that young age, Lynzi was happy to challenge the status quo if she felt there was a better, more equitable way forward.
Lynzi’s knack for problem solving and business acumen saw her working up the ranks of corporate giants in Holland. In these roles, Lynzi brought heaps of ideas to the table that she was confident would boost success. To her surprise, despite how much she had proven herself, senior leadership were highly adverse to innovation. Rather than test something different that could skyrocket growth, these large companies were quite happy trudging along doing what they were doing. Lynzi knew there and then that if she really wanted to change the way things were done, she’d have to do it on her own.
Not long after, Lynzi moved back to Scotland with her French-born husband and settled down to have a family. Every second year they would travel to France to spend Christmas with her husband’s 16-strong relatives, bags of gifts in tow. Lynzi found it difficult to buy unique gifts that would showcase the talent of Scottish artisans. With a French mother-in-law who was used to an abundance of choice from French local makers, Lynzi was questioned about any gifts that were not of Scottish origin. In her pursuit of genuinely local products, Lynzi discovered that Scotland’s artisan industry was severely lacking opportunities to sell. The entrepreneurial bulb in her head lit up. “There must be makers and there must be an industry here, but where is it gone?”
She set about doing her research; “I looked at your usual high street department stores, and actually, the artists are always the ones at the bottom, they’re making very little.” The more Lynzi looked into the industry, the greater injustices she discovered: requests for free work, promises of ‘visibility’, exclusivity restrictions - there was very little opportunity in Scotland for artists to actually make a living through their craft. And it wasn’t just the makers that were missing out. Speaking to shoppers on the high street, Lynzi realised that there was a huge demand not just to support local businesses, but also to purchase products that were one of a kind.
Guided by her research and ever-strong moral compass, Lynzi founded Scottish Design Exchange in 2015, opening her very first outlet in Ocean Terminal featuring products from 30 local artists. Where standard retailers were taking anywhere from 20-60% commission fees on sales, Lynzi decided to forge a different path and charge far less. Zero percent to be exact. Lynzi felt that success shouldn’t be penalised, but encouraged. That’s why artists would only pay a standard monthly fee for display space, but beyond that, their sales belonged to them.
Scottish Design Exchange’s first shop exceeded Lynzi’s expectations, launching with huge success. Shoppers were delighted to browse unique, local products. Artists saw their products fly off the shelves. Purchases supported the local economy. Buyers brought with them other opportunities and commissions. It was a triumph for everyone involved. And proof that local artists were more than deserving of an equitable spot on Scotland’s high streets.
Fast-forward to today and Scottish Design Exchange has gone from strength to strength, with prime locations in two of Scotland’s highest footfall shopping districts, Buchanan Galleries and George Street, a Makers Market on the Royal Mile and most recently, the opening of Foodies, for local food producers, with the same concept as SDX. The beautiful stores feature the highest-quality products from 300 of Scotland’s makers. Together with her team, Lynzi is helping these artists turn their crafts into businesses, supercharging their average incomes from £10k to, in some cases, £180k. In total, Lynzi and her team have generated an incredible £4.5m for local artists in the past 12 months alone, and close to £20m paid direct into artists pockets since the launch of SDX in 2015, strengthening Scotland’s art economy.
This success hasn’t come without its fair share of challenges, and Lynzi has tackled each one head on. Be it Covid lockdowns or lack of funding, she has always found a way forward in the pursuit of equity. And she’s not done innovating. With a waiting list of 150 creators eager to get their products on shelves, Lynzi is planning her next move. One in which she will help even more artists scale their businesses. One in which there is an SDX on every high street in Scotland.
