US-based professor to head PIOJ
Published:Thursday | June 10, 2010 | 12:00 AM
An associate professor of business and economics at Lafayette College in the United States will be the next director general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ).
Professor Gladstone Hutchinson has been selected by the Government to fill the vacancy created last year when Dr Wesley Hughes was moved to the finance ministry as financial secretary.
Dr Pauline Knight has been acting as the PIOJ's director general while the search was being conducted for a full-time replacement.
Yesterday, Information Minister Daryl Vaz told the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing that Hutchinson was slated to move into the post on July 5.
Vaz did not provide details on the man who is to lead the country's planning agency but checks by The Gleaner revealed that Hutchinson is no stranger to the country.
He served as a resident economic adviser to the Government from 1996-1998 and an economic consultant from 1998-2001 when he took up the full-time post of dean of studies at Lafayette College.
Among the accomplishments Hutchinson lists in his résumé is advising Jamaica's minister of finance on the development and implementation of a macroeconomic and financial programme for Jamaica.
Hutchinson also makes mention of spearheading the Government's formal introduction into, and capital-raising efforts in, the international capital market.