New glass managing director

Derren Gittins will be joining Synseal Group to head up its UK-wide glass operations.

Derren’s new role as glass managing director includes overseeing the four glass production facilities owned by Synseal Group – Village Glass, based in Essex, and the three Global Glass factories based in Nottinghamshire, Wigan and Blackburn, which houses the UK’s largest specialist roof glass production line.

With more than 25 years of experience in glass processing, Derren has spent most of his career in high profile positions at Pilkington, including as the head of downstream manufacturing, before taking up the post of managing director at Glass Systems Group.

“I am delighted to be joining Synseal Group at this exciting time of growth within their glass business,” Darren said. “This is an industry and customer base that I know very well and I’m looking forward to using the expertise gained from my many years at Pilkington and Glass Systems Group to help grow Synseal Group’s already impressive glass business, with the aim of giving our customers the very best possible quality, price and service across the whole of the UK.”

David Leng, CEO of Synseal Group, said: “In recent years we have expanded our glass offer, including the acquisition of Village Glass late last year, now giving us over 200,000ft2 of glass production facilities across four UK sites with more than 50,000 sealed unit capacity weekly. We have invested more than £10 million over the past four years in machinery, infrastructure and production capability, and we will continue to be acquisitive in this area of the industry.  

“It is right that we appoint someone of Derren’s calibre to manage this large-scale operation and ensure we continue to meet the growing demand for high quality double and triple glazed insulated glazed units for window, door and conservatory applications.

“Glass is an important part of the wider Synseal offer, and services not only the majority of our PVCU and aluminium system customers but also many glass-only customers who don’t currently purchase Synseal core products, making us the largest British-owned glass production business in the UK.”