Stephens Plastic Mouldings (SPM) has announced a series of senior appointments that mean women now hold three of the five seats on its management team - a notable position in a sector where women remain significantly under-represented.
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Jorden Reed has been promoted to Operations Director and Cheryl Baynton to Marketing Manager, while Sandra Mellis has returned to the business as Financial Controller. Together, the three appointments reshape the leadership of a company that traces its engineering heritage back to 1947 through parent company Stephens Gaskets.
Jorden Reed’s promotion caps a career built entirely within the Stephens Group. She joined the business at 17 and has worked her way up through the operation, learning the company from the shop floor upward before taking on responsibility for operations across the site as well as being made a Director.
“Coming up through the business has given me a real understanding of how every part of it fits together", said Jorden Reed, Operations Manager at Stephens Plastic Mouldings. “Manufacturing has given me a career I’m proud of, and I’d encourage any young woman wondering whether this industry is for her to take a closer look - there’s far more opportunity here than people assume.”
Cheryl Baynton joins the leadership team as Marketing Manager, bringing years of experience from her time at West Midlands digital marketing agency AIM Internet. Her background in B2B digital marketing strengthens SPM’s commercial and brand capability as the company continues to grow.
Sandra Mellis returns to Stephens Plastic Mouldings as Financial Controller, bringing financial leadership back into the senior team and reinforcing the company’s management bench at a period of growth.
Piers Baynton, Managing Director of Stephens Plastic Mouldings, said: “These are the right people in the right roles - promoted and appointed on merit. That three of our five managers are women isn’t something we set out to engineer; it’s a reflection of the talent in this business. Manufacturing has a reputation problem when it comes to attracting women, and the best way we can challenge that is simply by showing what’s possible. Jorden’s journey from 17-year-old new starter to Operations Director says more than any campaign could.”
The appointments come against a backdrop of persistent gender imbalance across UK manufacturing, where women make up only around a quarter of the workforce and a smaller proportion still of senior operational and engineering roles. SPM’s leadership believes that visible role models - and clear routes from entry level to management - are central to changing that picture.Stephens Plastic Mouldings continues to invest in its people and its capability as it serves automotive, medical, electronics, industrial and consumer customers from its Oldbury site.