Matthews started his new role as production print manager at Kyocera Document Solutions UK yesterday (1 October).

He left Heidelberg over the summer as part of the large-scale restructure of the Heidelberg UK business.

Matthews has extensive knowledge of the digital printing market and his appointment is seen as evidence of Kyocera’s ambitions in production print.

An industry source commented: “This is good for Kyocera and good for Chris. He’s a quality guy.

“It’s a statement of intent from Kyocera – the people who make the printheads will be in the driving seat in future.”

Prior to his nine year stint at Heidelberg Matthews worked at Kodak and Punch Graphix.

Kyocera launched its first production printers at the end of last year, including the 150ppm cut-sheet Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000c inkjet press.

The first TASKalfa Pro 15000c in the UK was installed at Document Despatch earlier this year.