Business - Appointments

Mimaki has appointed Hisayuki Kobayashi as its new global President, effective late June 2012.  He will replace the current President, Mikio Noguchi, who will be retiring.  The decision was made at the Board of Directors' meeting held on 11th April 2012.

Mimaki has expanded globally in recent years, including the improvement of the sales promotion system in the emerging countries. In order to meet the requirements of these strong growth markets, Mimaki now aims to strengthen its marketing, cost competitiveness and production systems in the emerging countries.

Mimaki says it will also 'continue to focus on the further reinforcement of the management base by delegating authority to the top of its development and production business.'

Canon, world-leader in imaging solutions, today announced the appointment of Rokus van Iperen as the new President & CEO of Canon Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He becomes the first European to lead Canon’s business across the EMEA region, succeeding Ryoichi Bamba, who is retiring after four years in the role and 40 years with Canon.

Van Iperen takes over an organisation that delivers world leading imaging products and services to millions of consumers as well as business and medical customers throughout the EMEA region, and contributes the largest regional share of total revenues for Canon Inc. He moves to his new role from within the Canon Group, having served as Chairman & CEO of Océ N.V. since 1999. Océ N.V. was acquired by Canon Inc. in March 2010.

“I am honoured to be the first European to assume leadership of Canon’s business in the EMEA region,” said Rokus van Iperen, President & CEO, Canon Europe, Middle East and Africa. “I have always admired Canon for its world-class track record in innovation and strong business performance. After working closely with Canon over the last few years, I look forward to overseeing the integration of Canon and Océ in EMEA, and to driving continued business growth for Canon throughout the region.”

Van Iperen joined Océ in 1978. After several posts within R&D, he became responsible for the Printing Systems business unit in 1989. He served as Managing Director of Océ-Belgium N.V. from 1992 until being appointed to the Executive Board of Océ N.V. in 1995. Key achievements for Van Iperen at Océ N.V. include the acquisitions and subsequent integration of the Siemens Nixdorf Printing Division and Imagistics Inc. into the Océ organisation. He is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Eindhoven.

Barcelona-based Poster and Panel (P&P), part of the IGEPA Group, has appointed JJ Hendriks as managing director. With immediate effect, JJ Hendriks will be responsible for the day to day business as well as the b2b export business. JJ will work closely with Enric Velasco - a well known and dedicated large format print (LFP) sales consultant for P&P.

In his new role, JJ will work in co-operation with IGEPA headquarters in Germany, as well as other subsidiaries of the IGEPA Group. He will report directly to Arne Kayser - member of IGEPAs' Partner Board and MD of VPH GmbH & Co KG, shareholding Partner of IGEPA Group.

JJ, who previously held the role of sales and export manager for LFP supplies at Fujifilm, will be based at Poster and Panel headquarters in Sallent near Barcelona, Spain.  He has over 18 years experience in the LFP industry where, amongst other senior roles, he served as sales director for Bedigital based in Spain. JJ was previously sales manager and director for UK-based SEAL lamination and Germany-bases ColorGATE.

"JJ is currently broadening our expertise of the fast growing LFP part of our business. We expect to strengthen our business in Germany, Europe and particularly in Spain, also with the help of Enric Velasco," comments Arne Kayser.

For more information on the IGEPA Group, please visit www.igepagroup.com

For more information on P&P, please visit www.posterandpanel.com

Sydney, Australia-based IMEDIA has announced the appointment of Jason Hay to head up its hardware sales efforts nationally.

Formerly a key salesman for both Oce and Fujifilm, Jason will be focusing primarily on EFI’s highly rated Rastek and Vutek wide format printing machines. He brings to IMEDIA a wealth of experience, knowledge and customer satisfaction.

This is a key strategic move for IMEDIA as it aims to strengthen its position in the wide format market, which continues to grow at over 30% each year.  When asked what excited him most about joining IMEDIA Jason replied “The products. IMEDIA has an outstanding and diverse product range, meaning we can offer our customers a solution for any requirement.”

“The proven Rastek H652 enables versatility for customers and the GS3200 Vutek is an awesome machine for grand wide format requirements. 2012 will also be an exciting year of product launches and developments from our main manufacturer EFI. It will be a fascinating year in UV technology advancements.  I am really looking forward to assisting customers around Australia to take advantage of the growth seen in the market and to utilise new technology to maximise their returns,” he adds.

Chris Lewis-Williams, IMEDIA’s National Sales Manager for Consumables comments, “Jason joining the IMEDIA team is a fantastic result and gives synergy to our recent efforts in building our consumables range. He is a guy that knows the market and understands what customers require.”

Jason will be based in Sydney and have a national team of salespeople reporting to him. 

InteliCoat Technologies has appointed Tom Shea as the USA Northeast Regional Sales Manager. In this role, Tom will provide additional support for InteliCoat’s dealers in the Northeast of the USA, including the New England states, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. 

Shea has more than 30 years’ experience selling to the design-professional community, with the last 20 years spent focused specifically on digital wide-format imaging equipment and supplies. With Shea’s significant experience selling to end-users, he will be a value asset for identifying new incremental business opportunities for InteliCoat’s reseller channel.

“At InteliCoat, we are always looking for ways to better serve and support our dealers and we are confident that Tom’s experience and skill set make him the perfect choice for this position,” said Ed McCarron, Director of Sales and Marketing at InteliCoat. “Tom is uniquely poised to help us maximise opportunities for our dealers and we are excited for him to join our team.”

“I am excited to join the InteliCoat team and to use my extensive industry experience to help InteliCoat to grow and better support its dealers in the Northeast,” said Shea. “InteliCoat has a strong reputation for excellence, which I am committed to maintaining and I look forward to bringing new and exciting opportunities to our valued dealers.”

Inca Digital has appointed two senior operations and customer support personnel - Marq Prentice as Director of Operations and Mark Noble as Senior Customer Support Manager.

Marq Prentice brings over 25 years’ experience in operations management in the aerospace industry with British Aerospace/BAe Systems and in the oil and gas related electronics industry with MTL Instruments and Cooper Industries. At Inca he heads up the operations team responsible for increasing productivity, reducing cost and improving quality across the assembly processes.

”Our goal is to be an agile world-class manufacturer of high quality machines using the skills of the workforce together with the support and development of our partner suppliers,” says Marq. “We place a high emphasis on teamwork, training and continuous improvement to ensure our machines are delivered in perfect condition.”

With 16 years’ customer support experience in the graphics industry, including EFI Vutek and latterly at Zűnd, Mark Noble heads up Inca’s customer support team in the UK and directly supported, European markets. He is part of a team which is doubling in size to provide in-depth support to Inca users. As part of this expansion, and following the appointment of several regionally-based engineers across mainland Europe over the last couple of years, eight additional Regional Customer Support Engineers have also recently been recruited across the UK to give strong, rapid-response coverage nationwide.

“We realise that, due to the high productivity of Inca printers, any downtime becomes critical and we therefore place a high priority on providing quick response to maximise our customers’ uptime. Our telephone response team is dedicated to providing high level telephone support with the aid of sophisticated online diagnostics tools, and our strengthened field engineering team is strategically placed to get to customer sites quickly. This ensures that we are delivering the service our customers deserve,” says Mark.

"The Inca Onset Series of printers has raised the quality bar in digitally printed graphics and stimulates demand in the market for fast turnaround, quality display graphics on a wide range of materials and at a competitive price, “ says Dr Linda Bell, Inca CEO. “This recruitment drive ensures that our expanding customer base continues to receive the very best support, and that we have the appropriate skills to continue to develop our technology and provide the benefits of this to our customers.”

For more information, please visit www.incadigital.com

[photo shows Mark Noble, Senior Customer Support Manager, and Marq Prentice, Director of Operations at Inca Digital]