Catté has worked at the France-headquartered group since 2007 when he joined as managing director. He became CEO in 2008 when co-founder Timothy Bovard stepped down.
He will be replaced by CFO Fabrice Holler (pictured below) who becomes chief operating officer reporting to the board of Elpis Management, which acts on behalf of private investor Richard Hughes who acquired CPI from Circle Media in 2019.
Holler has worked at CPI since 2010 and has been CFO since 2018.
In a statement CPI said: “We would like to thank Pierre-François Catté for his vision and hard work in placing CPI in such a strong position and wish him all the best with his next challenge. He will leave the group on March 31st after having finished a transition that was started months ago.”
CPI described Holler as “the natural candidate” to pursue the development of the group, which has 16 factories across five European countries, and is Europe’s biggest book printer.
In the UK it has seven sites and four divisions: CPI Books, CPI Colour, CPI Connect and CPI Royle.
CPI’s UK business is run by Tanya Dunbar, managing director of trade books, and Alison Kaye, managing director of its STMA division.
Dunbar said Holler had been Catté’s right-hand man for a number of years, and was the ideal person to take over.
“Although we are both extremely disappointed Pierre-François is leaving, there simply is no better replacement for him. Ali and I both work closely with Fabrice, he has been integral to taking the company forward with Pierre-François, with the same values and drive, and has supported us on all of the key investment plans we are currently delivering in the UK,” she said.
“There is a small and very effective team who work with Pierre-François in Paris, the same team will now work for Fabrice, so culturally the business, and management team, will remain the same, just with a new CFO. So a change at the top, but very fortunately, someone aligned with, and integral to, CPI Group’s strategy, which will deliver continuity to the business, our employees and importantly, our customers,” Dunbar added.
Separately, Matt Carter has joined CPI UK as procurement director. He previously worked at Walstead Group where he held the same role for nearly five-and-a-half years. He takes over from Janet Kenton.
CPI’s UK business had sales of nearly £130m in its most recent results, and around 1,100 employees.
