Jon Ferriman, one of the UK’s most senior steel executives, has been appointed integration director of Liberty, part of Sanjeev Gupta's global GFG Alliance, to help lead its expansion in continental Europe.

Ferriman, 53, began a distinguished 36-year career as a mechanical apprenticeship at the Llanwern steelworks in South Wales. He joins LIberty from Tata Steel UK where he was Hub Director, heading the company’s entire Strip Products UK business and its UK research and development activities.

Over the intervening years he has held a series of key leadership positions covering mainly flat product manufacturing within Tata Steel UK and its predecessors Corus and the British Steel Corporation.

In addition to these prominent operational roles, Ferriman has been responsible for major innovation programmes within the UK steel industry.

“Liberty’s global growth and development over recent years has been extremely impressive and I’m looking forward to being part of this next exciting phase which will see the business become a major new force in the European steel industry,” Ferriman said.

He takes up his new role on 1 April 2019.