Oliver Becker hands over to Jan Korenc

After six and a half years at the helm of Warsaw-based KBA Polska and, following its change of name in March 2011 KBA CEE (= KBA Central Eastern Europe), Oliver Becker (47) has taken up a new position in northern Germany and made way for Jan Korenc who will step into his shoes at KBA's Polish sales and service subsidiary on 1 November. Jan Korenc previously headed the highly-successful Prague branch serving the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As sole managing director of the entire enterprise his sphere of competence will now also include Poland, a core market for KBA.

Member of the KBA board and chairman of KBA CEE Ralf Sammeck thanked Oliver Becker for his substantial contribution to the company's success and wished Jan Korenc all the best for his new expanded role. 34 experienced employees at the Warsaw and Prague branches will assist Jan Korenc in serving sheetfed and web offset customers in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He also aims to intensify co-operation among KBA CEE's service engineers and press instructors in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Oliver Becker has continually increased KBA's market share in Poland over the past six years. KBA, with its medium- and large-format Rapidas, is the number one supplier in the high-growth packaging sector. Over the past twelve months four automated large-format Rapidas have been delivered to packaging printers such as Dako in Lubartów, Grafpoz in Posznan and VG Polska in Chelmek. In November a further KBA Rapida 145 launched at Drupa will be shipped to MMP Neupack Polska in Bydgoszcz.

As managing director of KBA CEE's branch in Prague which was founded 18 months ago, Jan Korenc (46) has also successfully built up an efficient service organisation for the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Along with several small- and half-format Rapida 66 and Rapida 75 presses, a number of larger KBA presses have also come online this year in the region: a long Rapida 106 double-coater press at Pharming in Varnsdorf, a Rapida 105 with coater at P.O.S in Turnov and a four-colour Rapida 145 at Typos in Pilsen.

Even though investment in commercial and newspaper web presses has been relatively poor in central eastern Europe, KBA CEE has also to take care of a raft of web press customers. It also distributes the small-format Genius 52UV built by KBA MePrint and will soon be adding the RotaJET 76 high-output digital press launched at Drupa.