Paul Smith names Zia Zareem-Slade managing director amid reboot

Paul Smith has chosen a retail operator with luxury polish and digital instincts just as the house turns 55 and tries to reset its business. Zia Zareem-Slade was named managing director on May 11, 2026, stepping into a role that could shape not only how the brand is run, but how it looks on the shop floor, online and in the market.

Her résumé points to where the emphasis may land. Zareem-Slade most recently led Annoushka as chief executive officer, and before that held senior roles at Fortnum & Mason, Hauser & Wirth and Selfridges. That mix matters for a label like Paul Smith, where the opportunity is not simply to sell more clothes, but to make the whole offer feel sharper: better edited product, more compelling store experiences and a stronger digital presence that can carry the brand beyond its familiar tailoring and stripe.

The timing is telling. Paul Smith is in its 55th year of independence in 2026, having launched in 1970 and celebrated 50 years of independent design in 2020. At that point, the company said its focus had shifted to making the next 50 years of Paul Smith as creative, maverick and colourful as the first. This appointment suggests the next phase may be less about nostalgia and more about turning that archive into a more commercially disciplined story.

Zareem-Slade arrives with a record that suggests exactly that kind of pivot. At Fortnum & Mason, she helped sustain commercial growth, improve online performance and customer reach, and oversee new store openings. That background could prove especially useful for Paul Smith as it works through a business reboot and restructuring with new management in place, after sales dipped and profits plummeted in fiscal 2025. For a brand with a clear identity, the challenge is not reinvention so much as tightening the connection between image and transaction.

There is also a broader brand-building angle here. Annoushka says the Brilliant Breakfast initiative Zareem-Slade launched in 2020 has raised more than £2.3 million and supported more than 1,900 young women. That kind of profile brings more than commercial experience; it brings a sense of modern brand stewardship, one that understands how values, visibility and retail all feed each other. For Paul Smith, the appointment reads like an attempt to make the house feel more agile, more visible and more persuasive in the year it needs momentum most.