FE has been a sideways move for Julie Kapsalis. But after a career in business development and PR – most notably for the darts industry – the acting principal and chief executive of North East Surrey College of Technology (Nescot) now has her target set on putting FE at the heart of the local skills ecosystem.
The day after my interview, she is presenting 150 people with their HE degrees and tells how her mother would never have believed that her daughter would end up in a job where she would be awarding degrees. For in her formative years, Kapsalis was – and still is, she confesses – “a bit of a rebel. Maybe the hair gives it away.”
She lists the loves of her life as “ferrets, cats, darts, my children, clay pigeon shooting, the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, Japanese fashion – the more outrageous the better – and travel”.
Kapsalis’s office very much reflects her passions. It has a darts board signed by the sport’s legends, Japanese ornaments, pictures of her with royalty and others drawn by students – including one of a ferret.
