Chief executive Terry Blyth said that although he was very disappointed by Foakes decision, he was delighted he would continue working with the company as a non-executive director.

Steven Munday steps up from sales and marketing director to replace Foakes as UK managing director.

Foakes was group production director at Emap for 10 years but resigned in February 2002 to run his own print consultancy business.

Salehurst has also decided to dust-cover its print management proposition.

Blyth said the board had instead decided to go ahead with an IT investment programme for its core paper management business, which he envisaged would take six to nine months to complete.

The success of this is paramount before we can move forward with the print management project, he added.

Business services director Chris Palmer, who was brought into the company in February to head its facilities management division, will lead the IT project as IT service director.

Story by Andy Scott