Liberty Steel Group, part of Sanjeev Gupta’s sustainable industry leader GFG Alliance, has strengthened its European management team with the appointment of Renaud Moretti as CEO Liberty Downstream Synergies and Colin McGibbon as CEO Liberty France. Both Renaud and Colin will report into Roland Junck, Liberty Steel’s president for the UK & Europe.

Renaud Moretti will be responsible for the overall management of the company’s downstream steel mills in Europe, which include Liberty's Magona plant in Italy and Liberty Liège-Dudelange’s three plants in Belgium and Luxembourg. Renaud will join the business in April.

Mr Moretti has almost 20 years of experience within the steel industry and was most recently CEO of NLMK’s Europe Strip, the division which includes NLMK La Louviere, NLMK Strasbourg and the service centre NLMK Manage. Before moving to NLMK Europe, he worked in senior positions at the galvanizing line and cold-rolling mill at the Corus (now Tata Steel) Myriad site at Maubeuge in France.

Colin McGibbon will be responsible for the overall management of the company’s French GREENSTEEL businesses, LIBERTY Ascoval and LIBERTY Rail Hayange. He joined Liberty yesterday (1 February 2021).

Mr McGibbon has over 20 years’ experience in the metals industry, most recently as CEO of the SLN Nickel Company in New Caledonia. He has a strong understanding of both our French steel and aluminium businesses. He worked for 10 years at Liberty's Hayange plant, ending up as the plant’s director.

Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of GFG Alliance and LIBERTY Steel Group, commented: “I am very pleased to welcome both Renaud and Colin to Liberty. They bring with them unrivalled expertise in the operational improvement and commercial growth of European metals’ businesses, whether upstream or downstream, which will help our businesses across the continent become more successful. I look forward to them helping our teams achieve the transformative results they have delivered elsewhere.”