A new year, and it's all change at the top for Unimer with director Alan Hampton, who has also spent the last 11 years as chairman, deciding to take retirement.
During his time with Unimer, Mr Hampton saw the business grow from just over £400million turnover to the current levels of more than £900m. He's also seen the business develop the industry's capability to trade electronically and has supported Unimer's significant investments in its systems capability, including a recent project that has changed almost 90% of the business' operational systems. This went live during Mr Hampton's final week at the company.

Unimer managing director Howard Grant said: "Alan has been an excellent chairman of Unimer, always bringing a commercial but very objective view on the business issues being reviewed. He has challenged the executive team and the rest of the board as to how the business should move forward, always ensuring that our merchant members' interests were the priority and always with good humour."

Leo Martin will be Unimer's next chairman. A Unimer board member for the last year, Mr Martin has extensive experience of the building materials sector and has operated at the highest levels of the corporate world.

Mr Martin has previous experience on the board of the Grafton Group as executive director back in 2005. Prior to this he was chief executive of the Heiton Group prior to its acquisition by Grafton.

Mr Grant added: "With Leo Martin as our new Chairman we have gained the experience and leadership of one of the industry's most successful business leaders in recent years."