Dr Jackie Mulligan

Dr Jackie Mulligan is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Place Management and Expert on the High Street Taskforce – she is also founder and CEO of multi award-winning ShopAppy.com, a platform that enables local businesses to showcase and sell products or services online. A passionate and professional speaker, writer and advocate of women in business and sustainability, Jackie has used her years of research and experience to create a platform that encourages customers to shop locally by making it easier for small businesses to establish themselves online, ShopAppy enables customers to easily browse, book and buy local in villages, towns and cities across the UK. Formerly a Principal Lecturer and Director of Enterprise in Leeds, Jackie left her academic career to found her own digital start-up to support local town centres and high streets to help them compete against the online giants. Jackie’s doctoral research into experience, psychology and behaviour helped her develop ShopAppy as she started to look at the importance of place on mental health and wellbeing, understanding how shopping locally can impact consumer and community happiness. Jackie expanded the platform from two to ten towns in the first year and since then has been working hard to improve the resilience of local towns and strengthen their capacity to compete. Since the Covid-19 outbreak, the platform has adapted by now offering delivery services and free registration to the website for local businesses and is now available in over 100 towns and cities. Notably, ShopAppy was named as one of the Top 40 Digital Retail Innovations by Retail Insider.