College principal appointed as AoC deputy chief executive

A new deputy chief executive has been appointed to the Association of Colleges (AoC).

Gill Clipson, principal of Amersham and Wycombe College, will replace Lesley Davies who left the AoC to become Director of Quality and Standards at Pearson.

The announcement follows an unsettled time for the AoC, which has been making voluntary and compulsory redundancies as part of a cost saving and restructuring process, as reported in FE Week in May.

Gill held a number of senior management positions before joining Amersham and Wycombe, one of the largest educational institutions in Buckinghamshire, made up of over 2,000 full-time and over 5,000 part-time students. The college which specialises in the arts was ranked as satisfactory — a grade three, by Ofsted who last inspected the institution in 2011.

Gill has worked nationally on the quality and improvement agenda and has also worked as an inspector. She is a trustee on the Board of Creative and Cultural Skills and has worked with the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy since its inception. She was a board member of the Buckinghamshire Economic and Learning Partnership as well as a principal on the Gazelle Colleges Group which aims to “transform colleges through entrepreneurship”.

The AoC employs over 100 members of staff, as well more than 30 staff at three sister organisations located in separate regions.

An AoC spokesperson said: “The AoC can confirm that Gill Clipson, currently principal at Amersham and Wycombe College, is being appointed as our deputy chief executive, subject to the usual negotiations around a start date.”

At the time of going to press Gill Clipson was unavailable for comment.