Personal stories of how respected professionals found their way into their auditing career niche.

Jackie Stapleton is the founding director of Auditor Training Online, which is a registered training organization (RTO ID 45123) and an Exemplar Global recognized training provider for courses in management systems auditing. Auditor Training Online offers online and blended courses to both new and experienced auditors, including Management Systems Lead Auditor (AU TL), Management Systems Auditing (AU), ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OH&S, ISO 45001, HACCP, and integrated management systems. Jackie is also a practicing contracted certification auditor for quality, environment, and OH&S management systems. She also leads audits ranging from small to medium enterprises to large global corporations, including commercial, industrial and civil construction, oil and gas, petroleum, infrastructure, utilities, IT and telecommunications companies, and government. Prior to her contracting roles, Jackie held senior quality and environmental positions in IT and telecommunications companies as well as government-owned utilities. Jackie also held the position of lead panel member for a JAS-ANZ accredited third-party certification body for seven years. She brings all of this experience to the world of training and is passionate about sharing the love for auditing and the benefits of agile and friendly management systems into a business.

Rick Gehrke has 25 years of experience in environmental, health, and safety with work in diverse industries, including food production, automotive and aerospace manufacturing, government and defense, electric power generation, chemicals, and more. He is a veteran EHS consultant, auditor, and trainer. Prior to joining Intertek Alchemy, he worked for Intertek as green services associate program manager. Rick is an Exemplar Global-certified management systems lead auditor with experience in ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, ISO 45001, ISO 50001, LEED green building certification, business development, and certification program management. He is a U.S. Air Force airborne operations veteran.

Mostly Q&A focused, and includes some perspectives of the technical situations that experienced auditors have encountered in various fields.

Melike DeGregorio is the owner of GreenUp Academy and GreenUp Consultants. She is an internationally accredited third-party lead auditor by Exemplar Global for ISO 14001; ISO 45001; OHSAS; RC 14001; and environmental, health, and safety (EHS) regulatory compliance audits. DeGregorio has 18 years of experience in the EHS and manufacturing world. In addition to her role as a consultant, lead auditor, and lead facilitator at GreenUp, she was a corporate EHS manager for a Tyco International division, air pollution control engineer at Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and production resource/environmental coordinator at Frito-Lay.

Richard A. Litts is the founder and president of Litts Quality Technologies Inc. Rick has many years of corporate, manufacturing, and consulting experience. He is an Exemplar Global quality management systems registered lead auditor, a PROBITAS Authentication AS9100 aerospace experienced auditor (AEA), and an IAQG-qualified AS9100 aviation, space, and defense auditor. Rick has been a member of (and the AS9100 subject matter expert) on a committee to protect impartiality for an international QMS registrar. He is an U.S. expert representative for the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/PC 302 Committee. He is a senior member of ASQ, an ASQ-certified quality engineer, and a certified quality auditor.

Marco Pardave has more than 40 years of experience in assessing company effectiveness and implementing solutions such as TQM, SQA, Lean, Six Sigma, ISO management systems, and risk assessments. Pardave’s professional achievements include positions such as VP operations, director, manager, consultant, assessor, auditor, trainer, and certification manager. Pardave has collaborated with international companies, which include Chrysler Corporations, Cotecna Quality Resources, DynCorp Corporations, the National Institute of Nuclear Energy, and Global Supplier Progress Inc. He is a member or delegate of the International Standardization Organization—ISO and Delegate for USA TAG 302 for the ISO 19011:2018 and Chief of the Mexican Delegation of the STTF- CASCO for the translation to Spanish on processes. He is also a Chief/delegate of the Mexican and USA TAG 302 delegates to ISO committees ISO TC 176 quality, ISO TC 207 environmental, CASCO; health informatics ISO TC 215 / and ISO/IEC 27000 Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, and delegate INLAC to the Subcommittee SC 27, IT Security committees HL7 WG2, having earned an international reputation as an expert in integrated supply chain security management.

Overview of what it is, why it is important, and how it fits into the broader upskilling of the auditor community, plus a recorded demo of the platform.

Keith Phillips has been a change agent from an early age. In 1984 he launched the Macintosh in the UK as the marketing director and then disrupted the printing industry with desktop publishing. The UK became Apple’s country of the year and as Apple UK’s CEO he climbed Mont Blanc as a team-building exercise. Transfer to Apple USA saw him lead business marketing in its digital media strategy. He then retired to New Zealand where he has been busier than ever as an investor and builder of several disruptive technologies. He created the first interactive multimedia company in New Zealand, selling it to Rupert Murdoch’s News Media, and participated in a number of technologies from virtual reality to cloud accounting and compliance assessment platforms. Keith has advised previous prime ministers on innovation and digital technologies and represented the New Zealand industry in delegations with the prime ministers of India, Australia, Singapore, and Pakistan.

Andrew Baines joined Exemplar Global as CEO in 2016 but has a much longer relationship with Exemplar Global having served on the Board of Directors for seven years previously. Immediately prior to becoming CEO of Exemplar Global, Andrew was Managing Director of the American Society for Quality’s Global operations. He joined ASQ in January 2015. There he managed ASQ’s operations outside of the US including offices in India, China, the Middle East, and Mexico as well as serving on Exemplar Global Board. Andrew has over 35 years of work experience spanning the food industry, auditing and conformity assessment, and international business development in several parts of the world. Living in New Zealand for the past 30 years, Andrew is originally from the UK where he graduated from Dundee University in Scotland with an Honors degree in Microbiology. After graduating, Andrew worked in the food industry in quality control, quality assurance and product R&D before emigrating to New Zealand where he began a career auditing quality, environmental and safety management systems. This led to business unit management and senior executive roles in a conformity assessment body, including establishing a New Zealand government-owned agency into one of the largest conformity assessment bodies in the Southern hemisphere. Also in that role, Andrew was responsible for international business development and has experience working in China, South East Asia, the Middle East as well as North America and Europe. Andrew has served on advisory and standard setting groups with government agencies.

We all know about so-called “Black Swan” events that are intended to represent things that are so rare that they may never occur. But in truth, many of these so-called black swans are really more gray—meaning that, while rare, they are indeed foreseeable (like a worldwide coronavirus pandemic, for instance). So how do we ensure that we’re auditing with the right risk metrics in mind?

Tom Taormina is a subject matter expert on the ISO 9000 series of standards who has written 10 books on the beneficial use of the standards. He has worked with more than 700 companies and was one of the first quality control engineers at NASA’s Mission Control Center during Projects Gemini and Apollo. As a business consultant, Taormina conducts strategic business assessments, root cause analyses, process planning, quality management, and risk assessments for companies from start-ups to global brand leaders. As a consulting and testifying expert in products liability and organizational negligence, he conducts formal assessments of the defendant companies to determine if they exhibited an appropriate or negligent standard of care in introducing their products or services to the stream of commerce. His proprietary methodology has been trademarked Forensic Business Pathology and has been an accepted credential by trial attorneys and judges.

Greg Hutchins, PE CERM is the founder of Certified Enterprise Risk Manager (CERM) Academy. His company was among the first companies (in 1987) to provide audit training with one of the first ISO 9001 certification bodies in North America (AGA Labs) and was first approved by the Department of Homeland Security for Critical Infrastructure Protection: Forensics, Assurance, Analytics. They have been conducting risk audits for 20 years. Greg is the author of Value Added Auditing, Risk Based Auditing, Supply Chain Risk Management, and ISO 31000:2018.