ABB has appointed Neil Ritchie to run its low-voltage AC drives sales business in the UK. He succeeds Steve Ruddell who, after 10 years in the role, has been appointed ABB’s head of global marketing for motors and generators.

Ritchie (above) will be based at ABB’s Daresbury site and will report to Chris Withey (below), who has recently taken over one of Ruddell’s other roles as local division manager for discrete automation and motion, UK. A new energy spokesman for ABB UK has yet to be announced.

Ritchie has worked for ABB for the past 22 years, starting in technical support for automation. For the past ten years, he has been managing ABB’s service activities for drives and motors. ABB says that his appointment as UK manager of the LV AC drives business, emphasises the importance it places on service to retain customer loyalty.

”I’m looking forward to running the UK drives business at what is an exciting time for drives generally,” says Ritchie. ”We have new low-voltage drives based on a common architecture, as well as a push into micro-drive applications. We also have an extensive motion control portfolio which helps us secure markets and offer a comprehensive and complete portfolio.

“Underpinning this will be a concerted effort to build on our lifecycle services while ensuring we improve our customer responsiveness at all times,” Ritchie adds. “This will help us to further strengthen our position as UK market-leader for low-voltage AC drives.”