He succeeds Neil Partridge, who is retiring.
Mr Richardson was a divisional managing director of Avery Weigh-Tronix before joining Aggreko, the generator rental company, in 2006 as managing director for northern Europe.
Mr Partridge joined Ainscough from Vibroplant in 1995 as financial director and took over as managing director after the Ainscough brothers sold up to a venture-capital-backed management buyout in 2007.
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