A leading UK manufacturing figure has been appointed as the new chair of the European Automotive Group within
www.euroforge.org Euroforge. Steve Morley, the current president of the
Confederation of British Metalforming (CBM), will take up the influential role at the association’s high-profile Autumn Summit in Milan on 21 October.
He will be responsible for developing a strategy to tackle some of the major issues impacting European automotive forgers, including the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), fluctuating energy prices and the availability of material across the supply chain.
The experienced automotive specialist has also put together an industry-packed speaker line-up for the event from across Europe, featuring Matt Pearson (Partner at EY Pantheon), Philippa Oldham (stakeholder engagement director at the Advanced Propulsion Centre) and Euclides Coimbra (senior partner and managing director of the Kaizen Institute). Together, the trio will give Euroforge members a clear insight into the current industry landscape, as well as exploring access to funding of new technologies and how firms can maximise efficiencies through new process implementation.
The Autumn Summit is an important pre-cursor for
conFAIR 2024 taking place on 22 and 23 October, which has a full house of exhibitors for the only European event specifically designed for the forging industry.
Evolution of forgingMr Morley, who has more than 40 years’ experience working in manufacturing, explained: “I am very honoured to have been appointed as the chair of the Automotive Group, one of the most prestigious roles within an organisation that now represents more than 350 members across Europe. We are at a very important time in the evolution of forging as an industry, especially when you consider the emergence of electric vehicles (EVs) and the types of parts we can supply. One of my roles will be to take all the intel we are getting on the ground and funnel them into a strategy that moves us forward as one collective. Milan will be a great start to the position and I am looking forward to meeting everyone at the Autumn Summit.”
Mr Morely has been president of the CBM since 2018, working with CEO Geraldine Bolton and its policy advisers to lobby the UK Government on key factors affecting the sector. Some notable achievements secured in the last six years have included increasing steel safeguarded quotas domestically, lobbying on the escalation of rising energy costs and providing intelligence on CBAM to members ahead of its European introduction. Formerly the Group engineering director at the Sertec Group, he has spent the majority of his 40-year career in and around the automotive sector, working at all tiers of the supply chain and running his own consultancy business.
Geraldine Bolton concluded: “Steve has the experience, industry contacts and passion to make a really big difference as chair of Euroforge’s Automotive Group. Importantly, he will be able to factor in some of the issues facing CBM members, ensuring they are represented alongside their European peers. He will also be in an ideal position to see new technologies developing at the earliest possible opportunity — intelligence that will help accelerate the growth of our own domestic supply chain.”