New External Relations director appointed - good news for the Isle of Man, but lots to get on with

The Isle of Man Government has announced it's appointed a new Executive Director to lead its External Relations.

This news is certainly welcomed by Reayrtys.

We highlighted in a recent newsletter that this role, vital to the Island's strategic direction and growth, has been vacant for all but around eight months out of the past two years.

There is clearly a lot to do when Christopher takes up post, but as a 'Starter for 10' (or 5?) we published a set of priority actions for the Isle of Man's new international strategy back in 2022 (we're still waiting for it's publication!). We believe some key priorities for the new Executive Director should include:

1. Benchmarking the Island’s soft power status and building out a strong identity of what the Isle of Man in order to tell a powerful story to the world

2. Identifying priority regions and international networks engagement programme

3. Dedicated public diplomacy programme targeting priority regions

4. Create a diaspora Engagement strategy - leverage the Isle of Man's connections to grow and position ourselves

5. Develop and deepen 'Strategic Foundations' - ensuring that we build out a dedicated external relations beyond Westminster and the Crown, as other neighbours and constitutionally related countries do

   
   

In terms of the broader strategic picture, we also published a short overview of some of the geopolitical shifts taking place around the Isle of Man and, in particular, the emergence of 'micro-blocs' as the once bi-polar world fragments. These smaller groups of countries, usually aligned around shared values or common traits, offer the Isle of Man a real opportunity to step up and move beyond the current Government sentiment that we are "a small island with a correspondingly small influence" (as one senior civil servant put it to Tynwald’s CLAJ Committee earlier this year).

Finally, as a kick-starter on point 4 above we've just published a policy review of diaspora engagement strategies from our Celtic neighbours.

We look forward to engaging with the External Relations team more in 2025.