Martell joined St Ives in 1980 as an apprentice at Clays. He rose through the ranks and became CEO in April 2009.
He has overseen the £322m group’s transformation into a specialist print and marketing service provider, closing and selling off print operations in commodity markets, and spending more than £200m on marketing and data businesses over the past four years.
He will be succeeded as CEO by current chief financial officer Matt Armitage, who joined the group in 2007.
“I am pleased for Matt, he is absolutely the right person to take things forward. We have worked side-by-side in implementing the strategy,” Martell said.
Deputy finance director Brad Gray steps up to the CFO role.
Armitage (pictured below) said: “I’m delighted to have the opportunity to look at where we take the business over the next five years, now that phase one of the restructuring and acquisitions we made to reposition the group has come to an end.
“We have three market-leading print businesses and a growing marketing services division. We are now looking at growth from a strong platform, and are still open to further acquisitions if we find attractive businesses.”
He added: “I’m also very pleased to promote Brad into the CFO role, he is very experienced in our print businesses and in acquisitions.”
Martell will stay on until the end of St Ives’ financial year at the end of this month, and the subsequent AGM to ensure a smooth transition.
He will take up his new role as chief executive of Informa’s £350m turnover Business Intelligence division in the autumn. Informa, which owns Ipex, has just announced a raft of senior management changes under its fresh chief executive Stephen Carter.
Martell was headhunted for the new role in a move that was unconnected to his presidency of Ipex 2014.
It’s a very international role at a global business, and will be a new and exciting experience,” he said.
“It will be strange to leave St Ives, but the business is unrecognisable from when I started,” he added. “I have been privileged to have had so many opportunities here and the last five years have been fantastic.”
St Ives’ share price was down 2.75p in early trading to 215.25p.
