The Perfume Shop appoints new boss as Jo Walker steps down after 22 years

Smith, currently AS Watson UK finance director, will take up the managing director role next month. She will be tasked with developing the ‘customer 360’ multichannel strategy to join up online and offline.

AS Watson Group managing director Dominic Lai said: “In the first nine months of the year, The Perfume Shop achieved a top-line growth of 1.4%. The business is also in the process of upgrading its ecommerce platform.”

Smith has previously worked as finance director of The Perfume Shop and currently heads up the finance, commercial analytics, legal and retail audit functions in Superdrug, Savers and The Perfume Shop, which are all owned by AS Watson.

Walker, is set to stay on at the retailer until the end of the year as she hands over the managing director role to Smith.

Walker started at the retailer in 1992 as store manager at the brand’s first ever store in the Bullring, Birmingham. She then worked her way up to become managing director in 2009.

Lai said: “Jo passionately believes in people development within The Perfume Shop 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.”