Multimillionaire businesswoman and retail fashion boss Naomi Milgrom has handed over the keys to a premium office suite in Melbourne to a social enterprise dedicated to hiring young autistic data analysts.
The head of Sussan and Sportsgirl has offered up 1500 square metres of rent-free office space in Cremorne to White Box Enterprises and its offshoot Australian Spatial Analytics to use for at least 12 months.
The suite is located within the coveted office development at 658 Church Street, where she splurged a reported $95 million several years ago.
Its newest tenant, Australian Spatial Analytics, trains and employs young autistic data analysts. Despite competing against cheaper offshore labour, the company has won over major contracts with state governments, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Agriwebb and Ventia. Marketing their neurodiverse staff as their advantage, the business has grown from three employees to 86 in just 18 months.
The move into Cremorne will allow further expansion, according to social enterprise entrepreneur and chief executive Luke Terry. “I think we’ll have 200 staff in the next 12 months,” he said. More than three-quarters of the analytics firm’s staff live with a disability, and most are under the age of 30.
“Most of these kids have never been in a workplace before so turning up and walking through those doors for the first time is really important,” Terry said. “Ms Milgrom’s generosity will have an incredible ripple effect.
“For the individual, they can get a real work experience, get a full wage … and it won’t be a huge transition when they move on to another workplace.”
Terry said quality commercial property was the key to success for social enterprises, with many new businesses relegated to cheap, older office stock with poor facilities in hard-to-access outer suburbs.
Milgrom had previously supported White Box Enterprises on another project in Bangalow in northern NSW, where two warehouses were purchased and will be turned into a commercial laundry, creating 120 jobs for disadvantaged individuals in the Byron Bay region.
Milgrom did not respond to requests for comment.
White Box Enterprises brings together philanthropists, developers, corporations and governments to facilitate the growth of social enterprises, with the aim of creating jobs for disadvantaged people including refugees, ex-offenders, Indigenous Australians and people living with a disability.
Terry said finding unused or vacant commercial property in well-located areas was key to the success of their business model.
Currently, White Box Enterprises and Australian Spatial Analytics are temporarily based out of 309 North Quay in Brisbane, a building owned by Charter Hall that will soon be knocked down and redeveloped.
“There’s a lot of dormant office space at the moment that could do something really cool for the community,” said Terry. “We’d like to talk to people who have development sites in key regional areas or cities.
“We want to do a space in Sydney, we want to do a space in Lismore, in Canberra, in Cairns.”
The spatial analytics firm is just one of their success stories. “White Box is built to go and build businesses like this,” Terry said. “A lot of people want to buy from social enterprises now.”
With the support of four investors and the Victorian state government, a vacant warehouse in Braybrook in Melbourne’s west was repurposed to house social enterprises Green Collect and YMCA Rebuild. The organisations are expected to create 300 jobs over the next three years for people who struggle to find mainstream employment.