College Websites

There is no biographical profile of the Principal on the College's website. This one is from the 2022 appointment article.

In a week in which we celebrate International Women’s Day, we announce that Janet Smith (nee Meenaghan), an experienced CEO and Principal with 35 years in the education sector, has been appointed as new CEO and Principal of Nottingham College.

Janet joins us from Inspire Education Group where she is currently CEO and Principal of the merged New College Stamford and Peterborough Regional College.

Her experience incorporates many years teaching across both FE and HE sectors, and as a manager overseeing many aspects of curriculum including apprenticeships, academic and vocational learning, plus degree and masters programmes.

Her career spans seven different FE colleges and having delivered curriculum and quality improvement as a senior manager in three of these institutions she became a Principal and CEO in 2015.

She oversaw the successful merger of New College Stamford and Peterborough Regional College in 2020, to form the now Inspire Education Group. In the Group’s latest Ofsted monitoring visit report from just over six months ago, the group was seen to be making significant progress in all areas listed.

Nottingham College
November 2016-January 2017

• Worked with the corporation board to oversee the successful merger of Central College and New College Nottingham to create Nottingham College, one of the largest further education colleges in the UK.
• Re-focused the organisation behind an 'employment-led' vision designed to link the pathways from education to employment, developing the skills employers need by raising aspirations and combining outstanding academic and vocational education in a curriculum powered by employers and delivered by the best talent drawn from within the sector and beyond.
• Established the governance arrangements and negotiated a complex cocktail of funding with Barclays bank, the local enterprise partnership, the city council and the government's transaction unit to facilitate the merger and to develop a new £58m city centre campus as an integral part of an overall modernisation agenda.
• Developed much greater capability to address the government's agenda to deliver more specialist, technical apprenticeships and commercial training for employers.

John van de Laarschot Consultancy
December 2015 - November 2016
Consultancy advice and guidance to a range of public bodies including:

• Thurrock Council - Local Government Association Corporate Peer Challenge - Peer team leader (February 2016)
• Oxford County Council options appraisal of future structures of local government -Grant Thornton Associate Consultant (June 2016)
• Designate Chief Executive Nottingham College - Interim Consultant (August 2016 - November 2016)

Stoke-on-Trent City Council
January 2010 - November 2015
Head of paid service, accountable to the elected politicians and national government, I shaped the strategic direction of the city focusing on raising economic prosperity and aspiration whilst maintaining and delivering effective services for those most in need. I built effective and sophisticated partnerships and radically improved the reputation of the city as a place to invest.

Torridge Council
June 2005 - January 2010
Torridge was in crisis under traditional local government leadership and needed radical turnaround. Working effectively in collaboration with elected members I successfully led the council's turnaround strategy and secured national recognition for the results.

Koninklijke Wessanen / Dailycer Ltd
May 2002 - June 2003
I led a classic bottom-line turnaround which required a blend of commercial leadership, sales and marketing expertise and a firm understanding of manufacturing and operations as the business was losing survival threatening sums. I achieved the results by focusing on profitable revenue growth, sustainable cost reduction and building a new organisation culture.

Gerber Scientific Inc / Spandex Plc
February 1999 - April 2002
Successfully tailored growth strategies to different global markets aiming to increase margin in mature markets and increasing sales volumes in less saturated economies. I led the global integration of SAP and changed the corporate ethos from product sales to customer service resulting in sustainable improvements to EBITDA.

PepsiCo
June 1990 - February 1999
I held a series of more senior positions with overall responsibility for improving the business dynamics for franchise and company owned bottling operations across a broad international portfolio.

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