Group Rhodes CEO, Mark Ridgway OBE, DL, named as one of the most inspirational figures in the 'The M

Group Rhodes CEO, Mark Ridgway OBE, DL has been named as one of the manufacturing sector's most inspirational figures for 2015.

The 2015 list, unveiled at an awards ceremony at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on November 25, identifies the sector’s most dynamic leaders and innovators to help inspire others.

Ridgway is CEO of Group Rhodes, a Wakefield headquartered group of seven engineering companies serving the aerospace, metalforming, precision engineering, environmental, heavy ceramics and oil and gas markets. Ridgway has helped the Company become one of the largest original equipment manufacturers in its field.

Under Ridgway’s direction the Company has won the prestigious Queens Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category in 2010 and in 2012 it achieved the same accolade for International Trade. Earlier this year the Company was ranked 29 in the Sunday Times 2015 top 100 SME exporters in the UK. More recently, Group Rhodes won Silver at this year’s prestigious EEF/Aldermore Future Manufacturing Awards, in recognition of the strides the Company has made in finding exciting new ways to work with education providers to promote engineering and manufacturing careers.

Ridgway is the immediate past president of The Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA), and council member of the Metalforming Machinery Makers Association (MMMA). Ridgway sits on the BIS Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative Board (AMSCI) and the Aerospace Growth Partnership’s International Sub-committee, as well as the Board of the Leeds City Region (LEP), chairing its Employer Ownership of Skills committee. He holds an MSc in Manufacturing Leadership from Leeds University Business School and Honorary Doctorates from Sheffield Hallam University and Leeds Beckett University. In 2015 he was acclaimed as NE England’s Manufacturing Champion by the UK’s Engineering Employers' Federation (EEF).

The Group Rhodes CEO commented,

“I am honored and delighted to be named amongst such an illustrious list of individuals. The Company’s success really has been a team effort, and awards like this are recognition of the hard work, high skills and determination of all our people.

Our strategy to continuously invest in our business has been effective. We have grown and managed our business efficiently while focusing on quality and delivering continuous improvements in our products and customer service. We’ve also continued to attract and train talented people both in our traditional areas and those markets which present new opportunities for our firm”.

The Manufacturer Top 100 aims to raise the profile of manufacturing, dispel myths surrounding it, create a platform to champion and publicly identify dynamic leaders and innovators in the sector, while simultaneously showing the world that manufacturing is a vibrant, exciting, creative and well-paid industry in which to be involved.