Jo Ellis
Jo Ellis’ career with a leading nationwide business has taken her from part time office administration to a senior management role.
Along the way, she’s accumulated considerable experience which she recently translated into a business degree with the help of the Centre for Assessment of Prior Learning (CAPL) at Ara. CAPL assessed Jo’s work experience, resulting in academic credits towards her qualification. With the addition of some extra courses at Ara, she was able to achieve a Bachelor of Applied Management - while she continued to work full time.
Jo is operations manager at Hearing Technology, the country’s largest privately owned and operated audiology clinic.
“I started with the company 13 years ago at our Shirley clinic. I’ve since helped grow the company from one clinic to seven. Now as operations manager my role is to ensure that the staff are happy and the operations of the company are running smoothly. It’s a full time position which keeps me busy travelling between Christchurch, Auckland, Whangarei, Nelson and Timaru. It’s a great job.”
Jo’s interest in management and processes lead her to want to improve her knowledge in order to do a better job. “Any extra learning can only be a good thing for me personally and for the company. I also understand that it would be difficult to gain the same type of job elsewhere without a formal qualification.”
With this in mind, Jo started on her journey towards a degree through the CAPL process. “CAPL catered to my needs with a great selection of pathways. There were flexible study options which included classes outside of work hours, so it fitted in with the demands of work.”
Jo says her tutors were very helpful and “the support from the CAPL team was great”.