Mitchell officially took on the mantle of chairman at Perigord last Friday (31 October).
“I had known of Perigord for some time. And it’s now positioning itself for its next stage of growth in a growing space and that’s the attraction for me,” said Mitchell.
“I was also very impressed with the management team led by chief executive Alan Leamy [who owns the business with his brother Paul, the firm’s chief technology officer].”
As well as the chairman role Mitchell has also bought into the business. While he declined to reveal the value of his investment, he stressed that it was a minority stake.
“I’m stakeholder in the business and going forward I’m excited about helping the business and developing funding to help them achieve their next stage of growth,” said Mitchell.
"We have ambitious growth plans and David will bring his experience of growing a business within a regulated sector, albeit financial. He will bring a wealth of experience that will help us grow in the similarly regulated life sciences industry," said Alan Leamy
"He will also help to scale the business and that was why the prospect of working with David over the next five years or so was particularly attractive."
The Dublin-based firm was founded in 1976 as a traditional pre-press business, but has subsequently grown to a €6m-turnover (£4.7m), 100-staff, technology-driven packaging artwork production agency specialising in the life sciences sector with offices in the US, Brazil, India and New Zealand.
Up until recently it also included three Irish print operations, Fine Print, Exact Digital and a BPO operation that traded as Perigord Group - the three companies were all sold to a management buy-in (MBI) team six months ago.
"We divested our print interests to enable us to focus solely on Perigord Premedia," said Leamy.
The company boasts six of the 10 biggest pharmaceutical companies among its clients.
However, Mitchell said that the company had identified significant growth opportunities beyond the realms of just the major players, stating that the need for compliant artwork production services and faster routes to market were key drivers across the entire pharma market.
Mitchell made his first to return to print in 2009, when he led an MBI at Bezier three years after selling Astron to RR Donnelley for £520m. However, he exited the Bezier business in the summer of 2011 and two-years later Bezier was placed into administration by owner HIG Europe.
As well as Perigord, Mitchell currently holds stake-holding. non-exec chairman roles at Focus 24, a camera and film equipment hire business, and online fashion business Lasula.
