News

Just like Christmas, PrintWeek's Power 100 only comes round once a year and is cause for disappointment and elation in equal measure.

In our seventh annual ranking of the industry’s power players, St Ives chief executive Brian Edwards has made a welcome return to the number-one slot – only the second individual to secure the crown twice (Polestar’s Barry Hibbert is the other).

In the seven years since Edwards took the crown in the inaugural Power 100, a lot has changed at St Ives.
Back in 2002, the company traded heavily on its image as the safe and respectable face of print, but was already starting to be described as slightly stuffy, slow to react and, perhaps, just a bit boring.

However, the company today, under the stewardship of Edwards and his able lieutenants Simon Ward and Pat Martell, is creating waves not seen since David Mitchell shook up the print management industry in the early- to mid-noughties.
And it’s no small coincidence that the print group’s activity in that self-same sector, through its group sales initiative, is largely responsible for Edwards’ elevation back to the top of the Power 100. Not, I hasten to add, that St Ives is necessarily describing itself as a print manager. After all, I’m quite sure it still handles a substantial swathe of work for other print management operations so it’s hardly going to bite the hand (or hands) that feed it.

Semantics aside, what the group has done is simply get back to basics and, as printers used to before the rise of the print managers, offer clients a joined-up offering for a multitude of print-related work.

That in itself serves as a shining light to printers large and small and ably justifies Edwards’ place as the most powerful individual in print.