Rainer Sauer (50) has been appointed CEO of OKI Printing Solutions' EMEA HQ (Oki Europe Ltd) effective from the April 1, 2006, in succession to Andrew Montgomery (65), who will remain Chairman of the company until the end of March 2007 when he plans to retire. OKI Printing Solutions is a major player in the highly competitive market for designing, developing, manufacturing and marketing business printing solutions which empower organisations to communicate more effectively.

In the coming months a successor will be sought for Mr Sauer's current position as Managing Director of OKI Printing Solutions' German subsidiary (OKI Systems (Deutschland) GmbH) and as Regional Vice President for Central Europe.

From October this year Mr Montgomery will hand over full executive responsibility to Mr Sauer, whilst remaining Chairman of the European board of management until March 31, 2007 when this role also passes to Mr Sauer.

Before joining OKI Printing Solutions in September 2002, Mr Sauer was Managing Director of the Consumer Products Division at Olympus Europe. Prior to this, he held the position of General Manager at BASF Magnetics GmbH.

Logical management change - further success predicted

Commenting Andrew Montgomery, CEO and Chairman of OKI Printing Solutions' EMEA HQ says: "I am pleased to be able to announce Rainer Sauer as my successor. As the current Managing Director of OKI Systems (Deutschland) GmbH and Vice President of the Central Region, Rainer has created great success since joining us. Under his leadership, following successful restructuring, we are significantly stronger in the hotly-contested market for LED/Laser colour page printers in Germany, having become the second largest in the business segment with a 32% market share*. Rainer will now provide OKI Printing Solutions with the right direction on an EMEA level to continue the successful growth and development as a flow of market leading new products are launched over the coming months and years."

Andrew Montgomery himself looks back on a career of over 15 years with the company and will remain over the coming 15 months a driving force behind its successful expansion across the mature and developing EMEA markets. Prior to this, he worked for eight years for the largest OKI Distributor in Europe, Technitron International, which was taken over by OKI Data Corporation in 1990.

* in the business segment (>10ppm) Source IDC