Vera Bradley co-founder speaks on campus
Vera Bradley’s co-founder told Franklin College students that she weaves respect for her workers into the fabric of her company.
Tuesday’s annual Cummins Lecture on leadership featured Patricia Miller, who discussed her life-long pursuit of learning and leadership through the co-ownership of her company, Vera Bradley Designs.
Miller spoke of the growth of the company she and a partner started in 1982. Along with co-founder Barbara Baekgaard, Miller said she used basic business knowledge to expand a small start-up operation into a booming international enterprise.
She said she understands why most businesses fail in their first five years, and that success takes some luck.
“The first five years are all about discovery, about building a team, about your own learning,” she said. “Learning was paramount in every aspect of the business…It was a hard five years but it was probably the most fun.”
Once the first of the Vera Bradley duffle bags were ready to sell, Miller and Baekgaard entered them into a home clothing show in Fort Wayne. It was there that Vera Bradley took flight.
Over the next 26 years, the company grew from a two-person venture into a worldwide product. Today, Vera Bradley employs more than 600 workers and sells its products in more than 3,700 stores.
What makes Vera Bradley unique, Miller said, is its commitment to its employees and its business partners.
“Please do business with people you respect, and with people you like, and people who will be true partners meaning they will bring something to the table that you need,” she told the crowd.
Bonnie Pribush, the director of leadership development at Franklin College, says Miller’s speech targeted the importance of team-building and understanding how leadership skills impact the business realm.
“[Miller] said the mistakes that bother her the most are when she hires the wrong person. She feels that by moving a family to Fort Wayne only to find the position doesn’t fit – she has failed them,” Pribush said. “I think that’s very telling that her biggest mistake is not about money its not about herself, it’s about the effect it has on somebody else.”
Pribush also said Miller understanding of leadership benefits her ability to relate to her audience.
“It was appealing because it was her story and so every leadership lesson was woven to a part of her life and a part of her story so it’s a whole fabric…it’s the fabric of her life and who she is,” she said.
