Elected into IEC’s governing Board

During the recent IEC annual General Meeting in Edinburgh, UK, a new member was elected into IECs governing Board (IB), namely Nemko’s Vice President Sales & Marketing, Håkon Rem, who is currently chairman of the Norwegian standards body NEK and thereby president of the Norwegian Member Body of the IEC, including the international conformity systems IECEE and IECEx.

“It is gratifying that Håkon was chosen for this position. This will be of great importance for the Norwegian electrotechnical industry. International standardization is facing a future that will bring major changes, not least driven by digital transformation and an emphasis on sustainable solutions. Through the board position, our chairman gets the opportunity to promote Norway's views and interests, and influence important decisions”, says NEK’s CEO, Leif Aanensen.
Norway has actually a tradition of serving on the governing boards of both IEC and the European CENELEC. NEK’s earlier CEO, Tore Trondvold was for several years IEC board member and later chairman of CELELEC. Until last year, the former NEK chairman Tore Tomter from Siemens was IEC board member, while Torbjørn Hoffstad from DSB was member of the IECs Assessment Board (CAB), where also the editor of this newsletter served for many years, and was in 2021 appointed IEC Ambassador for training of developing countries in IEC’s conformity assessment systems.

For more than 100 years, electrotechnical standardization has been an important setting for innovation and production. IEC's role is to bring international experts from the entire value chain together. The standardization entails processes that ultimately end in consensus for the requirements. This international approach removes trade barriers and means that more than 20% of world trade consists of electrotechnical products. A large proportion of these products are certified according to IEC standards by appointed certification bodies in different countries, such as Nemko in Norway 

For IEC’s standardization, digitalization will make it easier to develop the standards and make the content easier to access, whereby the way of applying the standards may change for the users such as manufacturers and certification bodies. Standards also play a central role in the work to create increased sustainability, not only for climate and the environment but for society as a whole.
“I think it is inspiring to become part of IEC's international network which entails 170 member states and knowing that the requirements in a standard shall be common to all”, concludes Håkon Rem. 

For further information, please contact the editor.

(The article is based on posting on our intranet and edited by T.Sollie)