Liu was previously chief financial officer of Smiths Detection, which had sales of more than £500m in the previous financial year.
Bevis announced he would be departing from the role last October, but won’t formally leave until March, when he will move to computer games company Frontier Developments. Liu, who was born in China but has worked for substantial parts of her career in the UK, will take up the role at the beginning of May.
Xaar chief executive Doug Edwards said: “From our standpoint Lily has good global experience. Less than 1% of our revenue is in the UK and the bulk is in Southern Europe and Asia and she has lots of experience there. China represents one third of our revenue so I think she will help us there for sure.
“She’s very operationally strong, has strong attention to detail, has worked in a B2B environment, and I think she’s going to bring quite something to the business. It will be great to have her in the executive team; she was head and shoulders better than everyone else we looked at.”
Prior to her role with Smiths, Liu spent seven years with vacuum systems manufacturer Edwards as financial director for global operations.
She has an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management and a BA in economics from Shanghai University of International Business and Economics. She is also a chartered management accountant.
Liu comes in at a time of growth for Xaar, which recently announced plans to invest £1m in its 3D printing business this year, as it targets £220m combined sales across its operations by 2020.
As part of the 3D spend, the firm is in the final phase of expanding its Nottingham 3D facility, which Edwards said should be fully operational by the end of March. A number of 3D printers are currently being shipped to the facility.
Earlier this month, Xaar signed a partnership agreement with Xerox for the development of bulk piezo inkjet printheads.
It is also currently in the process of scaling its Drupa-launched thin-film aqueous 5601 printheads, developed in partnership with Ricoh.
