Link to bio: Simon Cooper

Simon Cooper has spent his entire 27 year career in the printing industry, most of it in and around Essex.

His first jobs were at Precision Printing as production manager and after a three year sojourn away from the Dagenham (as it was) business, returning as business development director, leaving after 12 years with the company over two stretches. He crossed the river to work for Pureprint in the same role for another two years before becoming in 2012 managing director of Exaprint, a leading French web to print company. So began his journey with online printing.

Exaprint was always targeted at design professionals rather than web to print for small businesses. It created an inspiration pack of the sorts of work that could be produced through the website, either directly be designers or more frequently by printers wanting to offer their customers more than could normally be provided. During his time there Exaprint was acquired by Cimpress which led to a transfer to run Tradeprint in Dundee, arguably the first of the UK online trade printing business. 

Since 2019 Cooper has been managing director of Solopress, a relatively recent acquisition by the Online Printers group as its first purchase in the UK. He has led expansion of the company from a B2 only trade printer into B1, added further factory space to relieve pressure on the cramped premises, installed the first HP Pagewide T250 HD inkjet web press in the world and also the landmark 100th Indigo 100K. 

This year he has taken a group role at Online Printers looking after procurement and operations looking at the technology that might be suited across the group. Online Printers has its main facilities in Neustadt an der Aisch in Germany, with satellite facilities in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and most recently with the acquisition of CopySell and SombraCero, in Spain.