Toys “R” Us has enlisted a new CEO for Australia and New Zealand, as it continues its expansion plans in Australia and the UK.

Penny Cox will relocate to Melbourne from Singapore to head up the ASX-listed company.

Toys R Us owns the licences to the Australian and British e-commerce websites for Toys R Us and Babies R Us, as well as a hobbies and tech distribution arm.

Toys R Us managing director Louis Mittoni said in March that the company was chasing an aggressive strategy in the UK, including partnership with WH Smith for a number of in-store Toys R Us centres.

“To some extent families don’t consider it (toys and hobbies) a discretionary item; they still need to buy Christmas presents and birthday presents, and we haven’t seen any adjustment in the amount that people are spending,” Mittoni said at the time, of the market’s resilience.

“Outside of the US [the UK] is one of the largest toy market globally; it is the largest in Europe,” he said.

“We have put in a lot of significant one-off costs. But that investment is really to help drive the UK and Australian operations because we expanded our facility here, we consolidated everything.

“The message really is we are really at the beginning, we have only just started in the UK, two months into the peak season with really minimal inventory as well.

“So once we start to optimise these things through this calendar year it is a massive opportunity because we have really only just scratched the surface.”

Cox joins the company on August 7.