Prior to taking up his current role, Gordon was previously Managing Director of Siemens Standard Drives in Congleton, Cheshire - a position he had held since May 2002. There he was responsible for the overall management, strategic development and co-ordination of Siemens’ activities in Congleton, with special emphasis on the high volume production of inverters.

Gordon joined Plessey in 1984 as an engineering graduate and became a Siemens employee when Plessey was bought out by Siemens in 1990.

His career has spanned a variety of activities including engineering, project management and purchasing management. He was recruited to Congleton in 1996 to lead and introduce radical process re-engineering into the manufacturing operation. The programme resulted directly in an immediate 20% productivity improvement, coupled with increased manufacturing responsiveness.

New working conditions were established including employee flexible working arrangements and a new reward and recognition scheme for production employees. More recently, Gordon was involved in benchmarking the Congleton factory with other manufacturing plants throughout the world. He is the Siemens representative on the CBI Manufacturing Council.

Gordon was instrumental in introducing EFQM (the European equivalent to the Baldridge Awards) at Congleton in the late 1990s. In September 2004 the facility was awarded the top accolade of UK Business Excellence Awards winner by the British Quality Foundation.

Furthermore, the business was honoured with further major awards during 2004, taking Most Improved Plant at the UK Best Factory Awards and The Manufacturing Institute’s North West Manufacturer of the Year.

Prior to taking over at Congleton, Gordon was seconded to Siemens in Germany where he worked in both production management and customer services. He is married with two daughters.