About CEN

A civil engineer and entrepreneur, Mr Stefano Calzolari is the founder and the General Manager of SCLIngegneria Strutturale, an SME with a team of 22 professionals operating in the field of structural design. He was the President of Milan’s Order of Engineers from 2009 and 2016 and has been a Member of the Board of the “National Council of Engineers” since then, where he is in charge of standardization and certification of technical competences. Furthermore, he has gained an extensive experience in standardization, both at technical level, as the Italian expert in CEN/TC 53 ‘Temporary Works Equipment’ and Chairman of CEN/TC 344 ‘Steel Static Storage System’, and at governance level: since 2017 he is UNI’s Vice-President. To these skills, he adds a professional background as an expert of qualifications, especially in the field of competences: he founded and chaired the Italian Agency for Voluntary Competences Certification, CERT’ING. In June 2020, Mr Stefano Calzolari was elected as the President of CEN. His mandate as President started in January 2022. He has been re-elected for a second two-year mandate (2025-2026).

Ms Francke is the president of SIS, the Swedish Institute for Standards. She joined the SIS Board in 2018 with a focus on increasing the engagement of the real estate and construction sector in standardization. Prior to her role at SIS, she was Chair of BIM Alliance, the purpose of which is to develop standards for the real estate and building sector. She was also CEO of Tyréns AB, a consultancy that specializes in developing cities, the built environment, and infrastructure solutions. Ms Francke’s career has spanned both public and private sectors. She was the Vice-Mayor of the city of Stockholm she has served as a non executive director of companies that operate at both the national and international levels. Ms Francke served as President-Elect of ISO in 2022 and as the President in 2023–2024. In June 2025, Ms Francke was elected as President of CEN for a 3-year term, beginning on 1 January 2027, serving as President-Elect from 1 January to 31 December 2026.

Mrs Iuliana Chilea has been the Director General of ASRO, the Romanian Standards Association, since July 2017. Before that, she was the Director of the Standardization Division from 2010 to 2017, representing ASRO in the CEN and CENELEC Technical Boards and contributing as a convenor of several working groups. Mrs Chilea has served as a member of the MRMC since 2018 and was elected as a member of the CENELEC Administrative Board in 2019, starting in her role in January 2020. At the European level, she has been appointed as a member in the European Commission’s Committee on Standards. With a master’s degree in Law, Mrs Chilea started her career in standardization in 2003 as Copyright Administrator and Legal Adviser at ASRO. She further developed her expertise on copyright and intellectual property by working as an IPR attorney in a private law firm from 2006 to 2010. She also pursued post-graduate studies on EU Law, executive trainings provided by ISO, OECD and WTO. Currently, she is continuing her academic education in Business Administration at Bucharest University of Economic Studies. She was CEN Board Member from 2024 to 2025. She was elected as CEN Vice-President Technical for a two-year mandate, starting in January 2026.

Mr Christoph Winterhalter is the Chairman of the Executive Board of DIN, the German national standardization body. Prior to joining DIN, he worked more than 20 years in industry, heading global automation businesses in more than 50 countries as business unit manager and director of corporate research in the ABB Group. In July 2016, he joined DIN as CEO, driving customer orientation and digital transformation within the standardization system. Mr Winterhalter was elected member of the CEN Administrative Board and the ISO Council in 2017. He has served as CEN Vice-President Policy from 2018-2021 and as ISO Vice-President Policy from 2022-2025. Since January 2026 he is chairing ISO’s IT Strategic Advisory Group ITSAG and the joint ISO/IEC Standing Committee on SMART, building the foundation to transition the international standardization system from selling documents towards providing customized digital services to access standards content. He has also been re-elected as CEN Vice-President Policy for a two-year mandate, starting in January 2026.

Mrs Geraldine Larkin has been Chief Executive at NSAI, the National Standards Authority of Ireland, since March 2017. Before being appointed at the head of NSAI, Geraldine was the Irish regulator in diverse industries, including the private security sector. As the first regulator of the private security industry, Mrs Larkin drew heavily on Irish and European standards including in the areas of security guarding, electronic security and cash conveyancing in order to regulate the developing industry. Previously, as a career civil servant she held a diverse portfolio of policy responsibilities including in the areas of policing, crime, anti-drug trafficking, criminal law, human rights and European law. She represented Ireland in various EU and international committees in these subject matter areas. Mrs Larking holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration (MBA – Technology Management) from the Open University. Mrs Larkin served as CENELEC’s Vice-President in 2021, CEN’s Board Member from 2022-2023, and has been elected CEN Vice-President Finance for a two-year mandate, starting in January 2024.

Mr Javier García Díaz is the Director General of the Spanish Association for Standardization (UNE) since 2017. Previously to this, he was Standards Director and Head of International Standardization  Affairs of the Spanish Association for Standardization and certification (AENOR) but also Pre-Accession Advisor of the European Commission to Bulgaria in the field of Free Movement of Goods and member of the CEN and the CENELEC Technical Boards (BT). Between 2008 and 2013, he was Chairman of the Technical Committee Management Group of the CEN/BT. He served as chair of the CEN Strategic Advisory Group on Services. Mr García Díaz is a graduate in chemical engineering from the Complutense University in Madrid, holds postgraduate qualifications in Business Administration and Marketing Management. He followed Diplomatic Studies at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is currently ISO Vice-President Technical management and he was elected as CEN Board Member for a two-year mandate starting in 2023.

Ms Helga Sigrún Harðardóttir has been the Managing Director of Icelandic Standards, IST, one of the smallest Standardization Bureaus in the world from December 2017.  Due to the size of Icelandic Standards, she has been engaging with various aspects of standardization. She started her career as a teacher and a guidance counsellor but later she added BA and MLL in law along with passing the Bar, she also has Master’s degrees in human relations and Executive Business Administration. Before entering the standardization world, Helga was working as a lawyer, a business consultant, Managing Director of a national reproduction rights organization and the Manager of Parliamentary Groups but she also was a member of the Icelandic Parliament. She was elected as CEN Board Member for a two-year mandate, starting in January 2026.

Mr Pambos Kammas holds a BBA in Management from Cyprus College, in Nicosia, and an MBA in Marketing from the University of New Haven in the USA. He has been the Director of Standardization for the Cyprus Organization for Standardization (CYS) since 2006. In this position, he has represented CYS in the CEN and CENELEC General Assembly since 2007. He is also the Director of CYS Vocational Training Center. Before this, from 2004 to 2006 Mr Kammas was Director for Certification at the Cyprus Certification Company, where he started working after more than a decade at OEB, the "Cyprus Employers' and Industrialists' Federation". At the European level, he has covered a series of roles: among others, Mr Kammas was an elected member of CEN's Administrative Council (CA) for 2 consequent 2-year terms(2014-2017), and Chair of CEN's Certification Board from 2015 to 2017 and member of CENELEC's CA from 2011 to 2012. Furthermore, he was a member of the CENELEC Technical Board (BT) from 2006 and 2008 and of CEN BT from 2007 to 2014. He was elected as CEN’s Board Member for a two-year mandate starting in January 2023.

Mr Ruggero Lensi has been the Director General of the Italian Standardization Organization (UNI) since February 2017. He joined UNI in 1995, holding the positions of Head of the Standardization Department between 2000 and 2003, Technical Director until 2010 and Director of External Relations, New Business and Innovation until February 2017. Mr Lensi represented UNI for ten years on the CEN Technical Board (BT), where he served as Convenor of several Working Groups and also chaired the CEN/BT Technical Committee Management Group between 2004 and 2007. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Polytechnic University in Milan. He was CEN Vice-President Technical from 2018 to 2021, and has been serving as CEN’s Board Member since January 2022.

Mr Jacob Mehus is Managing Director of Standards Norway (SN). He has previously held positions as Marketing Manager and Marketing Director with the organization, and he headed the sales company Standard Online for a while. Before joining Standards Norway, his work experience included research at the Norwegian Institute of Building Research. Mr Mehus has extensive domestic and international experience in management, project management, marketing, and sales. Among other things, he has worked extensively with IT development as a prerequisite for business development and rationalization, and he is actively engaged in standardization as a force for innovation. Mr Jacob Mehus holds a Master of Science degree from Iowa State University and has taken post-graduate courses in economics and management from Stanford University, USA. He served as CEN Vice-President Finance from 2020 to 2021 and from 2022 to 2023. He was elected as CEN Board Member for a two-year mandate, starting in January 2026.

Mr Olivier Peyrat has been Director General of the French Association for Standardization (AFNOR) since 2003. He completed his studies at the Ecole Polytechnique, the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (ENST), Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (Executive MBA), and INSEAD Business School. Mr Peyrat has a long-standing professional experience in the fields of certification and standardization and has chaired numerous standardization committees and groups at the national, European, and international levels. He became the Vice-President Finance of ISO in January 2013. He is an Ingénieur en Chef au Corps des Mines (Hon) and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. He served as CEN Vice-President Policy from 2022 to 2024 and from 2024 to 2025. He was elected as CEN Board Member for a two-year mandate, starting in January 2026 and is currently an ISO Board Member.

Mr Ingars Pilmanis has been the Head of Latvian Standard (LVS) since 2008, first as Director and now Board Member. Mr Ingars Pilmanis holds a Master degree in Business Administration and Information Systems from the University of Latvia, and has given lectures for a number of years in the Riga Technical University on quality infrastructure and assurance. Before moving to LVS, he held numerous responsibilities in the Ministry of Economics of the Republic of Latvia. At different times, as Director of the Department he was in charge of policy in the field of standardization, accreditation metrology as well as construction worked with approximation of national legislation with the EU in field of free movement of goods. He was also the President of the Latvian Quality Association. He was elected as CEN's Board Member for a two-year mandate starting in January 2023.

Mr Akif Sesli serves as the Head of Standardization at Turkish Standards Institution (TSE). With more than twenty years of experience across standardization governance, technical policy, and quality infrastructure, he plays a central role in shaping Türkiye’s contributions to the European standardization system. After earning a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Ankara University, he joined TSE in 2006. Later he led the national standardization IT infrastructure as Manager of the Standardization IT System before assuming his current leadership role in Standards Development from 2016 onward. In his capacity at TSE, he oversees the full standards development cycle, coordinates national consensus procedures, and represents Türkiye in international standardization forums. He also serves on international standardization bodies contributing to global standardization policy and cooperation. With an academic background in chemical engineering and ongoing doctoral research, he integrates technical expertise with strategic vision. He continues bridging academic research with standardization practice combining technical expertise, governance experience and scientific foundation. He was elected as CEN Board Member for a two-year mandate, starting in January 2026.

Dr Scott Steedman is Director of Standards at BSI, the National Standards Body of the United Kingdom. Formerly an academic at Cambridge University, Dr Steedman spent 20 years in industry working for major consulting and contracting companies in the construction sector. He is an Executive Director on the Group Board of BSI and a non-executive Director of the Port of London Authority. He was elected President of the European Council for Construction Research, Development and Innovation in 1997, a position he held for 11 years. Dr Steedman has been a Vice-President of both the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2010, he was awarded a CBE for his services to engineering. He was CEN Vice-President Policy from 2013 to 2017 and has been elected as CEN Board Member for a two-year mandate starting in 2023.