Isle of Arran Distillers has announced a change in its top management structure designed to further strengthen the current Distillery operations on Arran and support the future growth of the business. 

From 1st June, Douglas Davidson will be appointed Deputy Chairman of the Company; responsible for the Companies future strategic direction and for securing inward investment to support the its ambitious growth plans. Euan Mitchell, currently Sales Director, has been appointed Managing Director of the business and will be responsible for all day-to-day operations. Speaking of these changes earlier this week, Douglas Davidson commented, “These two appointments make all kind of sense for our business at this stage of our development.  The Board have already shown their confidence in the future with over £750,000 spent on warehousing and production equipment at Lochranza during 2007/2008.  This will allow us to significantly increase our production over the next five years and beyond as we grow our sales in the many markets we now cover around the world.

“We have a first class team on Arran under the direction of Robin Bell in the Visitor Centre and James MacTaggart in the Distillery.  Our hard working head office group in Stirling also continue to rise to every challenge we put before them. Euan Mitchell will make a top quality Managing Director and bring fresh ideas to his new role.  He is well able to cope with the fast changing world of whisky, which is enjoying a period of both turbulence and growth, especially in the emerging economies of India, China, Brazil and Russia.  Together with Sales Managers Jaclyn McKie and Louisa Young, he will seek to ensure that Arran is properly represented in all key markets and that we now start the process of developing the Arran brand name and promoting our award winning products in a more aggressive manner than ever before.

"My own role will be to support these efforts and to ensure that the necessary finance is available not just to promote our brands but also to provide the necessary working capital to allow us to expand production so that we have sufficient stocks in place to satisfy future demand.  These are exciting times in the world of whisky.  Both these appointments and the recent capital investment at Lochranza should be seen as evidence of our confidence in the future of the Distillery and our determination to become a serious player in the single malt whisky sector worldwide.”