Sheffield Forgemasters Promotes Director

Engineering giant Sheffield Forgemasters International has promoted a new director. Gemma Allchin has been promoted to HR director from HR manager, a job she has held for four years, becoming the tenth member of the executive management team. Gemma has worked at Forgemasters for nine years, starting out as HR officer. In her new role, she will focus on developing the HR strategy for the company’s 680 employees to tie in with the five-year business plan, reporting directly to new chief executive David Bond. “Gemma has moved from the operational side of HR to working alongside our other divisional directors to create and deliver our HR strategy, which forms a crucial part of the company’s five-year business plan. I am delighted that we have the opportunity to promote someone of Gemma’s calibre who has the requisite skills to step up and work at the top tier of our divisional management. We are delighted to see that our investing in talent strategy is paying off by promoting Gemma and hope that this latest appointment to the executive team will inspire other members of our staff who want to progress within the business,” said David Bond. 2018 saw Sheffield Forgemasters making a series of senior management changes in order to establish an entirely new executive board with the appointments of David Bond as chief executive, Stephen Hammell as chief financial officer, Paul Cahill as chief operating officer, Colin Smith as chairman and Brendan Kendrick as sales and marketing director Gemma Allchin commented on her appointment, saying: “This is a great opportunity for me and I am very much looking forward to building the HR strategy. We have already done work through focus groups across the business to get the workforce more involved in ways that they can input into the development of the company. “It is a significant shift in approach towards our people and business culture creating greater dialogue and establishing clear company values and behaviours that our staff will help to develop and work towards.” Manufacturing & Engineering Magazine | The Home of Manufacturing Industry News