Commercial Director Celebrates 25 years with the Company

Rob Massey, Commercial Director and co owner at Forum Packaging Ltd, celebrated his 25th year on 4th February 2016.

Rob started with the company in his early twenties as an assistant Finance Manager back in February 1991. At the time, the factory was owned by Linpac, and they wanted to support Rob achieve his CIMA qualifications – especially when the opportunity came up to become the Factory Accountant after the job became vacant. Once qualified Rob was promoted to Finance Manager for the Horncastle site and, at the same time, he was also asked to take on an additional supporting role at another site in Nottingham.

After his promotion in 1997 Rob sought to develop his skills beyond being just an accountant and took more interest and responsibility in the day to day operations of Linpac. Supported by the Managing Director, Rob became a vital member of the senior team and his role evolved into more of a management accountancy role. He was part of the team that persuaded Linpac to invest in an 8 colour flexographic printer and also enter a new market with the purchase of a block bottom SOS machine. Both purchases continue to provide excellent service to the business today. The business changed hands in 2004 when DS Smith plc bought all the holdings of Linpac from Montague, a VC that had acquired Linpac a couple of years previously. Rob handled the change of ownership extremely well, and in 2006 another change came about when the business bought the sack operations of Smurfit Kappa in the UK. Rob formed part of the integration team, and the business grew dramatically. His history with the business became invaluable in shaping the future of the new enterprise.

His breadth of knowledge has grown with the company and he has seen many changes over the years, from the people to the product offering. Rob is also proud of the loyalty of its customers and employees, and now joins the long list of people who have worked for the business for 25 years or more. “My working environment has changed beyond recognition in the last 25 years. I can remember when all our paper was stored outside, people could smoke where they liked and computers were something of the future!”

In 2011 Rob, along with Mark Spivey the Managing Director, took the decision to buy the company from DS Smith plc. Forum Packaging was born, Rob explained that he had always been passionate about the company and purchasing it meant he could both secure the future of the site for Horncastle, and help shape its next phase of development.

With regards to the future of Forum, Rob says the company are always adapting and innovating to the changing market and environment which have included several large investments over the past 5 years. ‘Mark and I are always looking to the future, and we intend to grow the business further. We are always evolving and we need to ensure we keep up with the changes in customer demand, which also means considering other acquisitions where we can grow into other market sectors we don’t yet serve, as well as developing our core business of paper sacks!”