Vad took over as the managing director of Agfa’s UK and Ireland business four years ago.

Williams, the managing director of consumables and equipment distributor Litho Supplies, has worked in the industry for 37 years, and at Litho Supplies since he was in his early 20s. Agfa acquired Litho Supplies in 2011.

He will retain the Litho Supplies role when he becomes managing director of Agfa UK and Ireland business on 2 April.

Litho Supplies appointed Larry Burke as national sales manager last year as part of the succession planning process.

“This is a planned thing and Eddie knew he was my candidate,” Vad explained.

Williams also completed Agfa’s in-house global leadership course last year as part of his preparation for the new role.

He said he was looking forward to the fresh challenge. “We’ve grown the Litho Supplies business by £6m under Agfa through acquisitions and by changing the business. It’s an exciting time, as Agfa has some really nice new products coming out, such as PrintSphere and Arziro Design.”

PrintSphere is Agfa’s cloud-based workflow automation system, and Arziro Design is an Adobe Illustrator plug-in that creates anti-counterfeiting elements on items such as labels and packaging. The firm also launched a new 3.2m-wide roll-to-roll printer, the Jeti Ceres RTR 3200 LED, last month.

Vad has been commuting to the UK on a weekly basis from his family home in Copenhagen, but did not want to continue doing that indefinitely. He will leave the group to pursue new opportunities at the end of March.

“My aim is to successfully hand over the UK business to Eddie, then I will think about myself in April,” he said. “I have expertise in running and changing businesses and expect to do more of that in the future.”

The Agfa and Litho Supplies businesses employ circa 150 staff (not including the plate manufacturing operation in Leeds). Litho Supplies had turnover of more than £17m last year. Agfa Graphics does not disclose its UK turnover separately.