Sales director Adam Unsworth has stepped up to become managing director of the Macclesfield-based company, taking over from Rob Nicholls – who remains with the business, but with a floating remit to focus on special projects.

“I will still be around for certain projects as and when, very much based around bringing in new technologies and R&D innovation, but more in the background,” said Nicholls.

He also remains joint owner of the business, with finance director Tim Holt.

The management rejig has been in the offing for more than 18 months. Unsworth started in his new role today.

He joined the business as a graduate sales trainee 16 years ago, when the firm had fewer than a dozen staff and sales of circa £1m.

He’s taking charge of a business that now employs almost 50 staff and generates sales of £5.6m.

“In terms of the knowledge and experience I’ve gleaned in my time here, not least from working so closely with Rob and Tim over the years, I’m really excited to take that forward into my new role and having the opportunity to propel the business to its next level.”

Nicholls said he was “incredibly proud” to be handing the reins to someone that has developed and grown with business.

“It has been very evident that Adam was the future leader of the business, his work ethic, his relationship with clients, his leadership skills – he was the natural choice.”

“And it’s not just Adam, there are other individuals that have similarly grown with the business over the years.”

This was echoed by Unsworth: “We’ve got track record of recognising quality people and keeping hold of them, some have been here longer that 20 years. You can pretty much single people out in every department. It really is a fantastic team here.”

He added that because the step up had been on the cards for some time, he has already implemented a number of changes, the cornerstone of which will be what he described as a “very ambitious” new W2P platform to open up the firm’s range of card services to a wider customer base.

The new platform will be launched at The Print Show next week.

Next January the business will celebrate its 25th anniversary. It was founded in 1993 in the bedrooms of joint founders Nicholls and Holt after they were made redundant by DataCard Corporation in the recession of the early 1990s.

The business specialises in the production gift, loyalty, membership and smart cards, data processing, mailing and fulfilment. It produces more than 80m cards a year for clients including major retailers, FTSE 100 companies and public sector organisations.

Earlier this year it embarked on significant investment programme that included a new digital production facility that effectively doubled its production capability.