Designer Parfums makes leadership changes as portfolio grows

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 17, 2018

The UK’s Designer parfums has been picking up some important new licenses recently and on Monday it announced organisational changes to “clearly align its structure with its strategy.”

The Naomi Campbell and Ghost fragrance license-holder has also picked up the Jennifer Lopez, Cerruti 1881 and Playboy licenses in the last year, as well shedding the Jean Patou one.

It said that Santiago Alvarez is to be appointed to the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer. Most recently he served as Global Commercial Director for niche brands Penhaligon's and L'Artisan Parfumeur, after having held leadership positions at Puig, including responsibility for markets such as China, Europe, Middle East, Russia and Africa.

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CEO Dilesh Mehta said the new COO “understands global sales, go-to-market strategy, brand development and operations, and has a proven track record of capturing the growth potential of beauty brands in multiple distribution channels across diverse geographies.”

Meanwhile, Parag Vidyarthi who has been with the company for more than 10 years and “has been instrumental in building [its] business and reputation in the market,” is now Joint Managing Director.

Former investment banker Arkesh Shah has also been added into the leadership team as the other Joint MD, after having advised the firm for several years, most recently as a strategic consultant to haircare brand Frédéric Fekkai.

Shah led the acquisition of the Playboy and Cerruti licenses and will now oversee their integration into the business.

Meanwhile the company has also named Pascale Fontaine as Global Marketing Director. Fontaine brings over 20 years of global marketing expertise in beauty brand-building and license management and after starting her career at Unilever, spent her last 17 years at Coty where she was most recently Global VP of Adidas Fragrance and Body Care.