The newly rebranded University College Isle of Man (UCM) will have a new principal from September 2016.

Jo Pretty moves to the Island from Lowestoft College, which she has headed for two years.

Jo spent 17 years in the private and public sector, with roles in the NHS, utilities, engineering and manufacturing and recruitment. She owned and ran a design and steel fabrication company.

She joined education as a higher education lecturer and moved into adult education, then qualified as a secondary school teacher before switching to her current field of further education and skills.

As Head of School at City College, Norwich, she had strategic leadership of a ?10 million portfolio comprising engineering, construction, business, creative arts, retail and enterprise.

During her time there, Jo engaged with sector skills academies, was on a regional employers’ board and helped found and run Norwich Fashion Week.

Jo then studied in the United States learning new approaches for embedding entrepreneurship within education.

In 2014, she was appointed interim and then permanent Principal and CEO at Lowestoft College, which has a ?15 million budget. The college now boasts improved success rates and apprenticeships.

Jo volunteers with the Aspire Changemaker programme, currently mentoring for a business start-up in the States. She is married to Graham, an artist, and has two grown-up children.

Professor Ronald Barr, Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Education and Children, said: ‘Jo joins us at an exciting time for the former Isle of Man College of Further and Higher Education as we modernise its image and its offer to reflect today’s Isle of Man.

‘The desire to grow the College’s higher education offering is central to the rebranding, although the College will continue to offer its wide range of 14-16, further, vocational, professional and adult leisure and recreation courses.

‘Jo’s experience across the spectrum of education, her commercial outlook and experience and her proven record in managing change will serve us well as we seek to better meet the educational needs of our growing and diversifying economy.’