Gill Smith is appointed as Managing Director of The Perfume Shop
(UK, 7th October 2014) AS Watson Group (ASW) today announces management change in its high street perfume retail brand The Perfume Shop, with the appointment of Gill Smith as Managing Director of The Perfume Shop, effective from November 2014, replacing Jo Walker who has decided to leave the company for family reasons later this year.
Dominic Lai, ASW Group Managing Director said, "Jo has worked with The Perfume Shop (TPS) since 1992 and was our Store Manager of the very first Perfume Shop in Bullring, Birmingham. She was subsequently promoted to Retail Operations Director, Chief Operating Officer and was appointed Managing Director in 2009. Under her leadership, TPS has grown to over 275 stores and has become the No.1 specialty perfume retailer on the UK high street. Jo passionately believes in people development within TPS and the strong employee engagement led the business to achieve the Sunday Times Top 100 Employer status in the past three years. We are sad to see Jo leaving the company but we respect her decision to spend more time with her family back in the West Midlands.”
"I am pleased to announce Gill Smith as the successor. Gill joined AS Watson in 2006 as Finance Director of TPS. In 2008, she was promoted to the current role of Finance Director, AS Watson UK where she heads the finance, commercial analytics, legal and retail audit functions in Superdrug, Savers and TPS. In the coming two months, Gill will complete a full handover of the business from Jo Walker to ensure a seamless transition.”
Mr Lai added, “In the first nine months of the year, TPS achieved a topline growth of 1.4%. Meanwhile its eStore theperfumeshop.com has also recorded +1.8% sales growth. Under the leadership of Gill Smith, the team will focus on further developing the Customer 360 strategy of TPS to strengthen both offline and online perfumery shopping experience for the UK consumers.”
