Business - Appointments

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]

Antalis McNaughton has named David Hunter as the new Managing Director of the UK, Ireland and South Africa Region.

David will take over from Ian George during the next few weeks, and Ian will retire from Antalis McNaughton in June after an accomplished career of 37 years within the paper industry. Ian has successfully brought the business operations of Antalis and James McNaughton together into a unified operation in the UK and Ireland having joined the Antalis Group when the company acquired Map Merchants in 2007.

David brings with him a solid management experience from many years in B-to-B wholesale distribution at Wolseley, B&Q and Jewson and will be based at Antalis McNaughton’s headquarters in Coalville, Leicestershire.

David commentes, “I am delighted to have joined Antalis McNaughton and look forward to continuing the excellent work the company has done in developing the business to meet the evolving needs of our customers”.

For more information on Antalis McNaughton, please visit www.antalis-mcnaughton.co.uk

Michael Farkas has been appointed to the new role of Marketing Director at GMG GmbH & Co. KG. Michael joins GMG from IKEA where for nine years he was involved in developing the sophisticated and efficient workflow behind the IKEA catalogue, one of the world’s most demanding print production projects.

“Michael has substantial experience in international project management and business development and brings considerable energy and enthusiasm to GMG’s global marketing strategy. He also brings invaluable experience in the development and management of large-scale media projects and in the development of colour management and certified workflow concepts,” says Robert Weihing, Managing Director at GMG.

“From my experience at IKEA, I’ve come to know GMG as an impressive brand with a great team behind it and I’m very much looking forward to working with them to further realise the potential of GMG’s product range,” says Michael Farkas. “GMG is going from strength to strength and we have a busy year ahead, starting with a strong presence at FESPA Digital in Barcelona where we exhibit for the first time to launch a new production solution designed for the wide format graphics market.”

For more information on GMG, please visit www.gmgcolor.com

CGS Publishing Technologies International has appointed Vicki Blake to the role of Director of Business Development. She will also oversee marketing and communications for CGS operations in the Americas. Her appointment marks the beginning of a year that promises expansion of the ORIS product line into current and new markets, as well as new colour management and workflow products.

“We are very fortunate to have Vicki on the CGS team,” comments CGS's CEO Trevor Haworth. “Her wealth of experience in packaging, workflow and soft proofing, plus her impressive track record in developing business opportunities, is a perfect complement to CGS’ plans for growth in those markets.” Haworth also noted Blake’s leadership role in the Ghent PDF Workgroup (www.gwg.org), an alliance of end users, associations, and developers dedicated to creating reliable best practices for the graphic arts industry.

Blake’s previous roles include soft proofing developer ICS, where she served as Vice President of Business Development, developing that company’s OEM program, and establishing new key accounts and markets. Prior to that, she served as Business Development Director for PDF preflight developer Enfocus, where she initiated and managed OEM partnerships and was part of the initial team growing that business. She also spent many years with packaging workflow leader Barco Graphics (now Esko), in a myriad of management and marketing positions, serving as the liaison between sales, product management, R&D, and developing new markets.

“I’m really excited about working with CGS,” Blake says. “Its ORIS colour management and proofing line is simply the best there is. Its upcoming products promise more of the same. I’m looking forward to helping CGS launch some exciting new products and expand its existing target markets. It’s a perfect fit.”

For more information on CGS Publishing Technologies International, please visit www.cgs-oris.com