Gido van Praag, family man, enthusiastic blue-water sailor, Master Scuba diver & Divemaster, and marathon runner, is an industry veteran who spent over 30 years in the printing industry at Océ/Canon and HP in a variety of different roles.

In his last position at Océ/Canon he was the President & CEO of Océ Display Graphics Systems. One of the key achievements in this position was that he played an instrumental role in developing the Océ Display Graphics Business Group into the fastest growing top- and bottom-line business unit within the Océ Group. Other senior leadership positions at Océ that were held by Gido van Praag included Managing Director at Océ Singapore and President & Representative Director of Océ Japan.

At HP, Gido served initially as Vice President & General Manager Graphics Solutions Business for Asia-Pacific & Japan, followed by leading Europe Middle East & Africa for the same division. In both roles at HP, his responsibilities included, driving the overall business strategy for the graphics segment with a portfolio of products ranging from large format printers to digital printing presses. His responsibilities included Profit & Loss, end-to-end operations, and marketing strategies for the graphics segment. He also led the go-to-market strategy for the Graphics market in the respective regions.

Throughout his career, Gido’s most important motivation is the ‘people side’. His priority is positioning team members in places where they can maximize their strengths and ensuring that they continue to learn and develop in their roles. Besides that, Gido focusses on building high performing teams by placing people with relevant, complementary knowledge, and experience together. “This focus, combined with the culture of a ‘growth’ mindset, a strong ‘will-to-win’, and ‘a day without fun is a day without sunshine’, creates an environment in which business success will be the result”, Gido mentioned. Marco Roos, and Gido both share this management philosophy. They are bothy ‘high energy’ people who believe that the ‘highest energy’ wins.

Color Concepts CEO Marco Roos, commented, “We are overjoyed to welcome Gido to our team. His wealth of experience, open minded approach and leadership experience are giving our fast-growing team a tremendous boost and the confidence to execute on our disruptive strategy. Color Concepts is undergoing a transformation and is having an exciting future ahead, building a strong team, along with our technology and services, is our top priority. Gido’s active contributions help us to get there faster and more efficiently.”

Gido van Praag commented, “I am thrilled to partner with the Color Concepts team because of its talent, energy, and the strategic direction. I am impressed with the ever-growing global market footprint, huge customer base, and dataset Color Concepts has built over the past 16 years. Presently, Color Concepts has the technology and market reach to expand the delivery of mission critical products & services to the Large Format Printing industry (printer/press manufacturers, media manufacturers, RIP software manufacturers and last but not the least the Print-Service-Providers themselves). Moreover, the company is executing on a game changing strategic roadmap and is ideally positioned to disrupt and further democratize this market and the Graphic Arts market at large.

It is a privilege to share my experience to help drive the further development and execution of the growth plans of Color Concepts.”