Member Spotlight: Abby Wallach
Meet Abby Wallach, co-founder, CEO, and Creative Director of The House of Scentinvent in New York City, where she is reimagining fragrance as a lifestyle category. A member of CEW for more than eight years, Wallach bridges innovation, culture, packaging, product development, and brand storytelling to build distinctive, market-ready concepts. With a focus on go-to-market execution and category creation, she helps shape how fragrance is developed, positioned, and experienced. Here is what’s influencing Wallach’s career journey.
Career milestone: Early in my career, I moved fluidly between beauty, fragrance, culture, and storytelling, developing a deep fascination with how fragrance truly lives — not just in bottles or campaigns, but in motion. I became captivated by the way scent lingers in a room, trails someone down the street, and becomes an integral part of a person’s presence long before anyone asks what they’re wearing. This curiosity led me to reimagine fragrance as part of a broader lifestyle narrative. Over the years, by building brands and collaborating closely with perfumers, manufacturers, retailers, and creatives across cultures, I developed a clear point of view, which is how fragrance is a language expressed through ritual, mood, identity, and daily life. These firsthand experiences contributed to a growing movement toward clean, alcohol-free, skin-applied scents while also influencing the rise of fragrance hybrid formats that expand how consumers experience scent. Rather than replacing traditional fragrances, these innovations create more portable, playful, and immediate ways to engage with heritage icons, meeting the modern consumer wherever they are.
Key Advice: I believe in the importance of never giving up on your vision, understanding that it will naturally evolve, shift, and take on new forms over time. Staying true to that core vision, even as it transforms, is what ultimately matters. Relationships are everything, underscoring the value of building meaningful connections that can support, inspire, and sustain you throughout your career.
Mentors: I’ve always been immersed in the evolving intersection of content and commerce, producing Beautiful Stranger, one of the first platforms to bring the beauty and fashion worlds online in a shoppable way. That experience gave me direct access to editors, celebrity experts, and industry insiders, sparking a lasting curiosity about the ecosystem and the people who shape it. I have long believed that growth comes from curiosity, asking questions, listening closely, and allowing discovery to guide what comes next.
As my work evolved into fragrance, several figures became meaningful guiding influences, including Pamela Baxter, Margarita Arriagada, and Virginia Bonofiglio. From early concept development to commercial execution, their perspectives helped shape my understanding of thoughtful innovation. I also credit the experience of building alongside my co-founder and leadership team with deepening her perspective on both the opportunity and responsibility of creating something new. For me, mentorship is defined not by time, but by the insight, generosity, and shared vision that continue to influence how I build for the future.
Five-Year Career Goal: The past has always informed the future, with every format I have explored, category I have helped build, and conversation I have had with women seeking to experience scent differently shaping my perspective today. Over the next five years, I aim to continue building the foundation of what I call “Fragrance 2.0,” focusing on skin-scenting systems and methodologies that move fragrance beyond the bottle and into the rhythm of modern life.
Best Networking Convo Starter: I often connect with people through something distinctive I notice, whether it’s a scent, a lipstick, a look, or even a fabulous pair of shoes, approaching every interaction with an intuitive, detail-oriented eye. This instinctive way of engaging allows conversations to unfold naturally, turning small observations into meaningful, memorable exchanges that spark genuine connection.
