City & Guilds announced today (6 March 2008) that it has appointed Chris Jones, most recently Chief Executive Officer of Harcourt Education International, as its new Director-General.   He replaces Chris Humphries CBE who left at the end of 2007 to head the newly created UK Commission for Employment and Skills.

Jones joins City & Guilds on 10 March with the remit of ensuring that City & Guilds continues to be the leading force in the vocational education arena.   He comes with an excellent understanding of the vocational market as well as the needs of City & Guilds having worked in close partnership with City & Guilds to develop its successful online learning solution for the catering industry.

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 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.  Chris understands how we must 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.’

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Media queries:
Oksana Higglesden
City & Guilds
Tel:  020 7294 2556
Email:  oksana.higglesden@cityandguilds.com

Notes to editor:
City & Guilds (http://www.cityandguilds.com/) is the expert and leading authority in vocational education and training - both in the UK and beyond. 

In operation for the last 130 years, City & Guilds is the UK’s leading awarding body for work-related qualifications. Twenty million people in the UK have City & Guilds qualifications, and the organisation awards a further 1.5 million qualifications to learners every year.  

City & Guilds also enables people to develop essential leadership and management skills through its Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), which is the largest provider of management qualifications in Europe.

City & Guilds creates prosperity from skills for individuals, business and nations within and beyond the workplace.