Mr Smith is the first chairman appointed to the board of directors at SFIL since the retirement of Tony Pedder in 2017 and joins new CEO David Bond who took over from Dr Graham Honeyman, who stepped down in July, Steve Hammell as the group's new CFO and Paul Cahill as new COO.
With a strong track record in UK engineering, Mr Smith brings a wealth of experience to the company and will work to regulate the board of directors, chairing all meetings of the board and ensuring that the company's direction is set out and that the business strategy is effectively delivered.
Mr Smith said: “I am delighted to be joining the new team of directors at Sheffield Forgemasters, this is a company with extraordinary heritage and a skills set that is at the leading edge of engineering and manufacturing technology.
“This is not an industry without its challenges and we are competing in an intensely aggressive global trading environment, but we are aware that the only way we can take this business forward is through the innovation, technical superiority and added value that our services and products offer. In addition to delivering high quality output for our important, existing customer base, we are looking to expand our market reach.
“SFIL operates at the premium end of the market, but the quality and longevity of our output delivers long operational life for consumable components and ultimate reliability for safety critical components and these are tangible gains over our competition.
“We are collectively working to establish a clear future for SFIL and so we are making important decisions on how we manage our finances, how we market the business and taking steps to drive the company into emerging markets on a worldwide level.
“There are significant opportunities for this type of engineering, even on our doorstep, with the potential advent of Small Modular Reactors for the civil nuclear industry, decommissioning of nuclear power plants and the potential for a much more united and aligned UK supply chain serving the power generation sectors.”
Mr Smith retired from Rolls-Royce in May 2017 and has numerous industry roles including chairman of the Aerospace Growth Partnership and president of ADS, the trade organisation for companies in the UK aerospace, defence, security and space sectors.
In June 2012 Mr Smith was awarded a CBE for services to UK engineering. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, The Royal Aeronautical Society and The Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Sheffield Forgemasters www.sheffieldforgemasters.com
