The Furniture Awards, the annual celebration of the January Furniture Show’s best and brightest exhibitors, is open for entries. An industry-leading panel of judges will select the top candidates – among them Darryl Simpson, MD of retailer WJ Aldiss …
Darryl Simpson is the MD of W J Aldiss, which operates two regional furniture and furnishing stores in Norfolk. He is also the chairman of Associated Independent Stores (AIS), the UK and Ireland’s premier buying group for independent stores, with a real focus in furniture and home products.
Darryl has been in and around the furniture business for 38 years. After spending the early part of his working life within the family potato wholesale business, Darryl spent the rest of his career retailing in other family businesses.
He began at 17 on the furniture floor at Oldrids of Boston, before progressing into merchandise management and store management, and was appointed to the board position of merchandise director at the age of 29.
In 2013, Darryl was recruited to join WJ Aldiss as commercial director, to bring extra strength to the management team in the area of homewares and to develop an online division to the business. In 2016, he was appointed MD, immediately appointing furniture buying, trading and financial directors – in essence creating a new executive team.
Sales and profit increases followed, which enabled further investment in a new IT system to support accounting and buying functions, ecommerce platforms, and premises redevelopments to improve capacity and sustainability.
Darryl’s experiences have been forged almost exclusively in independent retail, working as a non-family executive in family businesses. This has been further enhanced by involvement in local chambers of commerce, business improvement groups, AIS steering and regional groups, and as a group director at the (BSSA) BIRA Oxford Summer School for a number of years.
Away from work, Darryl has a busy family life, but also finds time for the gym, running, playing the occasional football game and a little scuba diving.
Darryl joins fellow judges Malcolm Walker, Becca Maloy, Emma Leeke and Richard Naylor, who, chaired by Furniture News’ Paul Farley, will pick 2025’s winners. The category champions will be announced at January Furniture Show’s Social Studio (Hall 2, NEC Birmingham), at 5.30pm on Sunday 19th January. The deadline for entries is Wednesday 4th December – click here for more details.
Meet The Furniture Awards 2025 judges: Darryl Simpson
