He succeeds Alan Hampton, a former chief executive of the Burden Group, who has stepped down after 11 years in the role, and 16 years as a director of Unimer.
Mr Martin joined the board of Grafton Group plc as an executive director in 2005. He had previously been chief executive of Heiton Group plc prior to its acquisition by Grafton that year. He was appointed chief operating officer of Grafton in 2006 and was responsible for streamlining and integrating around 100 group acquisitions in the UK and Ireland.
Prior to his appointment as CEO of Heitons, Mr Martin had held the positions of group finance director and divisional MD. He had also been finance director of the House of Fraser’s Irish operations.
He trained as a chartered accountant with PWC and he is an alumnus of the Wharton Business School in Philadelphia. He currently serves on the Chartered Accountants Ireland Regulatory Board, is a director of Buy4Now, member of the board of trustees of Dublin City University Educational Trust, serves on the Court of the Worshipful Company of Builders Merchants and is a member of the audit committee for Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
At the end of December Mr Martin completed his contractual commitments with the Grafton Group and so becomes Unimer’s first truly independent non executive chairman.
Mr Hampton will continue as chairman of Peter Savage Ltd and as a director of the CPM Group.
