中文Twenty-three years is a long time to run anything. It is long enough that customers stop asking who is in charge, long enough that the culture of a company and the personality of its leader become difficult to separate. That is the length of Richard Bowles’s service at Nazdar, and it is now coming to an end.
Nazdar, a global leader in ink manufacturing and distribution for the printing industry, has appointed Edward (Ed) Baiden as president and chief executive officer, effective 8 September 2026. Baiden succeeds Bowles, who is retiring after more than 23 years of dedicated leadership and service to the company.
The interesting choice here is that Nazdar has not promoted from within, and has not hired from a rival ink maker either. It has gone shopping in the wider industrial and specialty materials world.
Baiden brings more than 25 years of global leadership experience across industrial and specialty materials businesses. He joins from W. R. Grace, where he served as senior vice president, strategy, planning and transformation, leading enterprise strategy, commercial and operational transformation, technology management and corporate development.
Read that job title carefully, because it describes what boards hire when they want change managed rather than merely announced. Strategy, planning and transformation is not a caretaker’s role.
Before Grace he led PPG’s global Traffic Solutions business — road markings, highway coatings, the unglamorous chemistry that has to survive weather, abrasion and time. Nazdar notes that this experience aligns closely with its own focus on manufacturing excellence, innovation, technical expertise and customer partnerships.
The parallel is more direct than it first appears. Traffic markings and printing inks are both engineered fluids sold on durability, applied by customers under imperfect conditions, and judged by how they hold up months later rather than how they look leaving the plant. Somebody who has run one can reason about the other.
His career also includes roles at DuPont and GE. Nazdar describes him as known for running complex global businesses and building strong teams, with a track record of growth and lasting customer relationships.
Jeff Thrall, executive chairman, speaking on behalf of the TEI board, framed the appointment as the end of a deliberate process. “Following a thoughtful and thorough search, the Board is confident we have selected a leader who will build upon Nazdar’s strong foundation while positioning the company for its next chapter of growth,” he said.
“Ed’s proven ability to lead global businesses and strengthen customer relationships makes him the right leader for Nazdar’s future,” Thrall added.
Baiden’s own statement did the thing incoming chief executives too often skip — it acknowledged what he is inheriting. “I am honored to join Nazdar, a company with a century-long reputation for quality, innovation, and strong partnership with its customers,” he said.
“I have deep respect for what Richard and the team have built, and I look forward to working alongside them to carry that legacy forward and lead Nazdar into its next chapter.”
That century-long reputation is not a marketing flourish. In the ink business, longevity is technical credibility. Formulations get refined over decades, and the knowledge of why a particular resin behaves badly on a particular substrate lives in people and lab notebooks, not in a purchase order. Buying an ink company is easy. Buying that institutional memory is not.
Which is why the handover mechanics matter more than the announcement itself. Baiden and Bowles will work closely together through the leadership transition to ensure a smooth handoff for employees, customers, suppliers and business partners. Nazdar says its commitment to customers remains unchanged and the team is focused on making the transition seamless.
Anyone who has lived through a leadership change at a supplier knows how much rides on that overlap. The failure mode is familiar: the new chief executive arrives with a plan, the long-serving relationships fray, and six months later a converter somewhere is quietly qualifying a second ink source because nobody returned their call about a colour issue.
Bowles, for his part, sounded like someone leaving on his own terms. “It has been a privilege to lead Nazdar and to work alongside such a dedicated team and loyal customers,” he said. “I am confident the company’s best days are ahead, and I am pleased to help Ed step into this role for a smooth transition.”
His tenure, Nazdar says, helped strengthen the company’s business, culture and reputation across the global printing industry. Twenty-three years spanned the decline of much traditional screen work, the rise of UV and digital chemistries, wave after wave of consolidation among ink suppliers, and pandemic-era supply chain chaos that turned raw material sourcing into a daily fight. Steering an ink business through all of that is not a passive achievement.
For customers, the practical question is simple: does anything change on my invoice or in my lab support? The stated answer is no, and the overlap period is designed to keep it that way.
For the wider industry, the appointment is a small data point worth noting. When a heritage ink manufacturer reaches outside the printing sector for a chief executive whose specialism is transformation, it usually signals that the board expects the next decade to look different from the last one.
Baiden starts on 8 September. Bowles hands over a company he has shaped for 23 years. Both statements are polite, warm and entirely conventional — and in an industry where supplier stability is worth real money, conventional is exactly what customers want to hear.
Source: Specialist Printing Worldwide — “Nazdar Names Edward Baiden President and Chief Executive Officer”, 19 August 2026. Original article: https://www.specialistprinting.com/news/n-1142-nazdar-names-edward-baiden-president-and-chief-executive-officer/
