Former Rolls president on board to ‘establish clear future’ for SFIL

A FORMER Rolls-Royce group president has joined Sheffield Forgemasters International as non-executive chairman, completing a new top team.

Colin Smith CBE, 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 after Dr Graham Honeyman stepped down in July.

Steve Hammell was appointed the group’s new chief financial officer and Paul Cahill is the new chief operating officer.

Mr Smith 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.

He said: “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.”

He added: “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.”

Mr Smith retired from RollsRoyce in May 2017. He was awarded a CBE for services to UK engineering in 2012.