LIBERTY Steel Group has appointed Aida Nechifor as the General Director of its LIBERTY Galaţi plant in Romania. Aida, who has worked at the plant for more than 20 years, is the first woman to lead the plant in its 55 year history as well as being the first woman to lead any major Romanian steel plant.

She will also have management responsibility for LIBERTY Skopje, a downstream site in North Macedonia.

Aida, who was previously the plant’s Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Management Committee since December 2018, joined the Galaţi steelworks in 2001. She initially joined as an economist before leading teams across sales, accounting, financial reporting, planning and analysis functions. She is a graduate of the Economic and Business Administration Faculty of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iasi.

Prasanta Kumar Mishra, who was appointed the plant’s interim General Manager in February 2021, has been appointed the new Executive Director of LIBERTY Galați. In that role, Prasanta will continue to work closely with Aida to steer the operational and the technical aspects of the plant’s production activity and will lead on the preparation of the key strategic development projects, such as the plant’s new electric arc furnace, DRI plant and MI.DA mini-mill.

Paramjit Kahlon, CEO Primary Steel and Integrated Mining of LIBERTY Steel Group, said: “I am very happy to appoint Aida to this important role as I believe she can and will be a shining inspiration for the development of Galati and for the Romanian steel industry more widely. Since the beginning of the year she, supported by Prasanta, has calmly and effectively led the Galați team to deliver consistently excellent results. I believe she can now lead the team to continue its drive to improve the plant’s production levels up to 3.0 million tons of steel a year, from around 2.0 million last year, as well as accelerate the plant’s ambitious plans to become carbon neutral by 2030.”