During a recent visit to Washington, DC, Eddy Njoroge, President-Elect of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), highlighted and acknowledged the critical role that the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) plays as the U.S. member body to ISO. ANSI's president and CEO S. Joe Bhatia invited Mr. Njoroge to the ANSI Board of Directors meeting on December 4, 2019.
Mr. Njoroge, the former CEO of the Kenya Electricity Generation Company (KenGen) and board member at the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs), will begin his leadership term in January 2020. As CEO of KenGen, Mr. Njoroge helped KenGen become the first parastatal company to be ISO 9001 certified. He will replace current ISO President John Walters of Canada.
During the Board meeting, he acknowledged the significant number of key leadership positions that ANSI holds in the technical work program of ISO. In particular, ANSI has served as secretariat of ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee (JTC) 1, Information Technology, since its inception in 1987. The committee supports a multitude of different industries and applications operating on a global scale, from smart cities and cloud computing to cybersecurity and programming languages.
Mr. Njoroge also outlined his four-point agenda for his tenure as ISO president:
Promote the use of international standards as an instrument to address trade imbalance and to serve as the basis of technical regulations;
Position international standards as a catalyst for industrial growth;
Advocate "ISO standards used everywhere, affordable and accessible"; and
Encourage developing countries to contribute to the development of international standards.
The former CEO of the Kenya Electricity Generation Company (KenGen) and board member at the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs), Mr. Njoroge will begin his leadership term in January 2020. As CEO of KenGen, Mr. Njoroge helped KenGen become the first parastatal company to be ISO 9001 certified. He will replace current ISO President John Walters of Canada.
Following the ANSI Board of Directors meeting, on December 5, 2019, Mr. Njoroge met with Mr. Bhatia and other members of staff at ANSI headquarters to further learn about how the U.S. system of standardization functions, ANSI's roles within the system and, in particular, how the Institute interfaces with U.S. stakeholders to prepare positions related to ISO activities.
"On behalf of ANSI, its members and constituents, we are very pleased to continue a close working relationship with Mr. Njoroge and ISO in support of advancing globally relevant standardization solutions," said Mr. Bhatia.