City & Guilds appoints new Director-General

City & Guilds has appointed Chris Jones, the former Chief Executive Officer of Harcourt Education International, as its new Director-General. He replaces Chris Humphries CBE who left the Group at the end of 2007 to head the newly created UK Commission for Employment and Skills.

City & Guilds has appointed Chris Jones, the former Chief Executive Officer of Harcourt Education International, as its new Director-General. He replaces Chris Humphries CBE who left the Group at the end of 2007 to head the newly created UK Commission for Employment and Skills.

Jones joined City & Guilds this week with the remit of ensuring that City & Guilds continues to be a leading force in the vocational education arena, achieves its ambitious five year strategic plan, and realises its international aspirations. He comes with an excellent understanding of the vocational market as well as the needs of City & Guilds, having worked in close partnership with the Group to develop its successful online learning solution for catering tutors and learners.

In his former post, Jones transformed Harcourt Education International , implementing a customer centred vision to increase revenue. Previous to Harcourt, Jones served as Senior Vice President at LexisNexis Risk Management Group and Group Director at Financial Times Electronic Publishing.

City & Guilds’ Chairman, Michael Howell, confirmed that Jones had all the right credentials, experience and qualities for the top post. ‘Chris has the right business acumen and experience to ensure that City & Guilds will keep growing, so that we may continue to pursue our declared purpose which is to increase prosperity for individuals, employers and nations. He exceeded our expectations in his understanding of how we respond to the fast changing external environment and we have every confidence that he will build on our successes and fully embrace emerging opportunities.’

Chris Jones said: ‘I’m delighted to be joining City & Guilds. It is a great enterprise with great people and a brand that has more strength and potential than any of the competitors. The fast changing environment presents a fabulous opportunity for all areas of the Group and I’m looking forward to understanding more about how we can seize these opportunities and maximise our market share in the global market for skills.’