Swindon catalogue and online retail firm Scotts & Co has promoted group finance chief Andy Walsham to the role of group managing director.
Mr Walsham, pictured, joined the firm, which is behind brands such as Scotts of Stow, Bloom and the Original Gift Company, in 2012 from the UK division of B2B manufacturer and IT business Brady Corporation. He has also worked at Wolseley, Bluebird Toys, which once had its HQ in Swindon, and accountants Deloitte Haskins & Sells. 
Scotts & Co has more than 4m active customers across eight leading brands, making it one of the largest independent direct retailers in the country.
The group, based on Swindon’s Groundwell industrial park, distributes more than 60m catalogues each year and attracts 400,000 unique visitors each month to its website. Visitors to its Stow-on-the-Wold store exceed 80,000 a year.
Chairman Nigel Swabey said: “Over the past 21 months, Andy has successfully managed a number of important structural changes within the group. He has also won the confidence of both his board colleagues and our staff with his consensual style of management and his level-headed, analytical approach to decision-making.
“In an entrepreneurial group like Scotts, creativity needs to be tempered by sound financial analysis. The size of our company is now such that we can no longer afford to rely on the efforts of a few talented individuals and must build strength in depth. Andy established a reputation for himself as a builder of strong management teams during his time at Brady UK. For this and many other reasons, I am confident that he is the right man to take our company to the next level in its development.”
