Jan Wilkinson

Jan Wilkinson has been a senior leader at The University of Manchester since 2008. With over 20 years experience of senior management of the HE sector, in nine different posts and eight different organisations, Jan joined The University of Manchester, and its Senior Executive Team, as University Librarian & Director of The John Rylands Library. Prior to this she was a member of the Senior Leadership Team of the British Library (July 2004) in a new role of Head of Higher Education. Previous experience includes the University of Leeds, as University Librarian and Keeper of the Brotherton Collection, the London School of Economics, as Deputy Librarian, and a range of roles within the former polytechnic and college sectors.

Jan has led major strategic development and modernisation programmes to ensure that libraries remain relevant, innovative and accessible in the 21^st century. While at the LSE, she also led a major philanthropic capital campaign for a very large, newly designed building, by Sir Norman Foster. 

Jan has been involved in library developments at a national level for a number of years. She is currently a Board member of the UK Research Reserve, Elsevier European Library Advisory Board and Swets UK Customer Advisory Board and an assessor for the Wolfson Foundation.

Jan has undertaken a large number of board and consultancy roles and has also worked on projects and committees for JISC and HEFCE.  She was previously a member of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network Advisory Board, Research Libraries UK and the Research Information Network Advisory Board (RIN).  

Jan is currently Course Director for an international leadership development programme for Library & ICT Directors, based in the Netherlands (TICER), and for European directors based in Barcelona, Estonia and Munich, to date (LIBER).