Margot and Alan Spalding

Margot and Alan Spalding are co-owners and co-Directors of JIMMY POSSUM Furniture.

Margot studied Primary Teaching and Graphic Design. Alan is also a qualified teacher, who trained as an Industrial Designer.

Margot commenced a career in children's clothing manufacturing. She moved into furniture design and production – and established JIMMY POSSUM Furniture with her husband, Alan, thirteen years ago (yes, Jimmy’s now a teenager!!). The company’s significant 10^th anniversary in late 2005 was celebrated in true ‘Possum Style’ with a party for 300 people in the new 1,000 square metre Upholstery Shed, at the already ‘multi-shedded Head Office’ in Bendigo. Just a couple of months later two new stores (one in Cheltenham, Victoria, and one Mosman, NSW) were added to the JIMMY POSSUM Retail Stores stable, bringing the total to five, across three states. As the original showroom in Brisbane had become too small to meet the growing demand for JIMMY POSSUM product, a new, much more spacious, two storey showroom was opened in Fortitude Valley (QLD.) in October 2006. And now, in 2008, JIMMY POSSUM has opened another store, its sixth, this time in ‘the home’ of JIMMY POSSUM … Bendigo. JIMMY POSSUM also boasts 160 highly skilled and enthusiastic employees (‘Possums’!).

Margot and Alan are passionate about their family, their business, and the region. They admit to “living, breathing, eating and sleeping JIMMY POSSUM”. Add to that the fact that they are parents to seven wonderfully talented children, and this is one demanding mix – but one on which they obviously thrive!

On 31 October 2006 Margot was overwhelmed and humbled when, as part of the Telstra Business Women’s Awards, she was awarded the ‘Victorian Westpac Business Owner Award’, and was subsequently named ‘Telstra Victorian Business Woman of the Year’ for 2006. The honour was ongoing for Margot when, in Sydney in December, she was named the ‘National Winner of the Westpac Business Owner Award 2006’, AND, to great fanfare and delight! was named the ‘TELSTRA AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS WOMAN OF THE YEAR 2006’!