A £75m Liverpool city region ‘global centre of excellence’ for the decarbonisation of glassmaking appoints a new chief executive. Tony McDonough reports

Richard Katz left, with new Glass Futures chief executive Justin

Glass Futures in St Helens has appointed Justin Kelly as its new chief executive.

Opened in June 2023, Glass Futures is a £75m facility that is tasked with seeking new decarbonised ways of making glass in the town that has been a global centre for glassmaking for two centuries. It has seen the creation of around 80 jobs.

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority invested £9m into the project. Further funding came from the Government’s UK Research and Innovation fund. Glass sector companies have contributed around £20m in resource, time and equipment.

Justin is a Chartered Engineer with a BEng (Hons) in computers, management and electronics. He began his career at Siemens where he held several roles over nearly three decades culminating in his appointment to the Siemens executive management board.

He was the founding CEO of the Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing Centre in Greater Manchester. In 2023 he became non-executive chair of Sustainable Ventures North.

Justin takes over from Richard Katz who has been with Glass Futures since January 2020 and oversaw its construction and launch. Richard will become president of the organisation.

He will continue to work closely with the new Government to help them understand how Glass Futures’ research, development and innovation enables growth.

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This facility has been designed and built by the industry to allow practical experimentation with alternative low carbon sustainable energy sources to replace high carbon natural gas to decarbonise glass manufacture toward a sustainable future.

Aston Fuller, general manager at Glass Futures said “Having been the second employee at Glass Futures, I’m extremely proud to see the exponential growth of the organisation in such a short period of time.

“These important changes will support our growth and impact with our ever-growing diverse membership across the global glass supply chain sharing our collaborative ethos, to our own team who’ve developed and grown our vision.”

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