Rae worked at Heidelberg UK for 15 years before moving to the States in 2011, where he became senior vice president for equipment at Heidelberg Americas.

He has now taken up a new role as head of group marketing, with a worldwide remit.

In a LinkedIn update, he described himself as having “a passion for team-based selling driven by a clear, marketing-led strategy”.

“There is nothing quite like seeing a project come to fruition from the initial brainstorm on how to approach the market to training the sales team to deliver the message – resulting in the final volume of sales.”

Rae’s update said he had accepted the fresh challenge to become head of group marketing as a result of his experiences in the field.

“Heidelberg is the market leader in the supply of printing equipment and services to the print media industry. In this role I am responsible for the worldwide development and delivery of our marketing strategy, reflecting customer centricity and our transformation into a digitised company for the future.”

He was unavailable for further comment at the time of writing.

Heidelberg brought in fresh top management 11 months ago, with the appointment of Rainer Hundsdörfer as chief executive and Ulrich Hermann who heads the group’s new Digital Business & Services division.

In June Hundsdörfer unveiled a new five-year growth strategy aimed at establishing Heidelberg as the "high-growth and profitable lighthouse of the industry".