Ian Tichias will join the Cambridge-headquartered business as CFO and main board member on 1 March.

He replaces Shomit Kenkare, who resigned in September and stepped down at the end of last year as part of a boardroom exodus at the business.

Tichias joins from Ibstock and prior to that held senior finance roles at Zoetis and Pfizer.

Xaar chief executive John Mills, who took over the top job nearly four months ago, commented: "I am delighted that Ian will be joining Xaar as we lead the company into its next phase of development.

“His extensive financial experience, alongside a fresh new perspective will add significant value to the business.”

Separately, Xaar has set up a new ‘five-step service’ aimed at helping companies evaluate the suitability of fluids and inkjet technologies without incurring large upfront costs.

The five steps are: fluid evaluation, jetting optimisation, sample production, upscaling, and project completion.

Investment in the service includes a dedicated laboratory with a number of test rigs.

The initial focus is the of jetting high-viscosity fluids, which can’t typically be handled by printheads from other manufacturers, Xaar said.

Mike Seal, business development manager for Advanced Manufacturing and 3D Printheads, said: “Inkjet technology is now highly relevant across a multitude of new product development applications, and we wanted to enable companies to be able to review the suitability of inkjet printing in their product development programmes without the need for significant capital investment or upfront costs.”