Jessops has appointed commercial director Neil Old to chief operating officer to drive the camera retailer’s multichannel strategy and continue rolling out its ‘Live’ stores.

Old starts his new role today after joining the camera specialist in February. He joined from big box electricals retailer Best Buy Europe where he was European commercial director. He also has top level experience across Dixons and PC World.

He will be replaced in the commercial director role by Peter Duncombe who has been working as a consultant to Jessops for the last three months. He has also formerly worked as a trading director at Dixons.

Old’s promotion follows the departure of boss Trevor Moore in July, who has this week started up his new chief executive role at entertainment retailer HMV.

Executive chairman Martyn Everett has replaced Moore.

Jessops said sales have accelerated after launching its Jessops Academy, which offers customers training on all aspects of photography. Since its relaunch this summer Jessops has already sold 1,000 customer courses.

Jessops has already opened 15 ‘live’ stores - which allow customers to touch, pick up and interact with the products - and two centres of excellence, which feature shop in shop layouts for the photography brands .

Another 10 revamps are planned for the rest of the year, including two more centres of excellence.

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