John Widdowson CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) is principal and chief executive of New College Durham. He chairs the Mixed Economy Group (a working group of 40 colleges that offer higher education courses in addition to their FE provision) and was a member of the HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) board for six years, chairing its' widening participation committee for four of those years. In 2010 he was awarded a CBE for Services to Local and National Further and Higher Education. In the interview presented in this article, he talks to Chris Oates about his approach to leading and managing Higher Education (HE) in Further Education (FE) and the challenges this presents.