The European Electrotechnical Committee for Standardization is one of three European Standardization Organizations (together with CEN and ETSI) that have been officially recognized by the European Union and by the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) as being responsible for developing and defining voluntary standards at European level.
A trained Engineer, Mr Wolfgang Niedziella has been Head of Digital Safety Centre of Competence at VDE, the German Association for Electrical Electronic & Information Technologies since its establishment in 2019 and Chair of IEC System of Conformity Assessment Schemes for Electrotechnical Equipment and Components (IECEE) since 2016. Mr Niedziella began his career in 1987 at the VDE Testing and Certification Institute GmbH in Offenbach. From 1991 to 2001, he was Manager for standardization projects in the field of electrical components at the DKE and served from 2001 to 2003 at Commerzbank AG as a change manager in the transaction banking division. In 2003 he returned to the VDE Testing and Certification Institute as head of the Components, Household, Trade and Industry Department. From 2011 to 2019 he was Managing Director of VDE Testing and Certification Institute and from 2012 to 2015 he managed in parallel the subsidiary VDE Global Services GmbH with its eight Asian companies. He was also the Chair of IECEE/CTL (IECEE Committee of Testing Laboratories) from 2010 to 2015. In June 2020, Mr Niedziella was elected as the next President of CENELEC (2022-2024). His mandate as President started in January 2022.
Mr Frédéric Vaillant is Vice-President for Energy Management Standardization at Schneider Electric. In this position for 6 years, he has been actively involved in national, European and international electrotechnical standardization. He also manages a standardization team involved in various positions in IEC, CENELEC and several national standardization bodies, himself being engaged on electrical installation rules. Over the course of his career, Mr Vaillant has built a strong experience in the management of engineering, technical, upstream marketing and innovation teams first at Saint Gobain, Merlin Gering and then at Schneider Electric. He was also a member of the board of the Physics Department at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble and chaired the strategic orientation council of the Carnot Institute “Energy of the Future”, a lab association gathering 1400 public researchers. To his managerial career Mr Vaillant adds his multiannual activity as a part-time teacher at the continuing education centre for adults, at the Grenoble electronic engineering school and at the Grenoble university. Mr Vaillant holds a degree from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and a PhD in Physics from the Grenoble University. Mr Vaillant was elected CENELEC’s Vice-President Technical for a mandate beginning in January 2021.
Mrs Ewa Zielińska is CENELEC’s Vice-President Policy since January 2022. She has served at Vice-President in charge of external relations and sales at PKN, the Polish Committee for Standardization since 2019. Before that, she built her career in the organisation’s External Relations Department, where she started working in 2000: she was appointed as Head of Unit responsible for foreign issues in the External Relations Department from 2010 to 2012, and since 2012 she was the department’s Director. In doing this, she also acquired extensive experience in European and International standardization, serving in different positions in IEC and CENELEC’s Boards and technical bodies. Mrs Zielińska has a Master’s degree in Sociology from Warsaw University and a Postgraduate degree on European Affairs from the same university.
Mr Karl-Heinz Mayer is Director Innovation, Codes and Standards & Program Management in Eaton’s Industries EMEA Power Distribution Division (PDD) and member of the extended Management Board. In this position since 2009, he has been actively involved in national, European and international electrotechnical standardization. He also manages the standardization team of PDD which contributes to various national and international technical standardization committees. Over the course of his career, Mr Mayer has built a strong experience in the management of Research & Development, Innovation, Program Management, Quality and Standardization teams starting at Felten & Guilleaume AG, continuing at Moeller Gebäudeautomation GmbH and followed then by Eaton Industries (Austria) GmbH. He is board member of the private foundation ESF. Mr Mayer holds a degree in industrial engineering and is certified as manager for quality. He was elected as CENELEC Board Member for a two-year mandate beginning in January 2021. He was elected as CENELEC Vice-President Finance for a mandate starting in June 2022.
Mr Ivelin Burov has an extensive experience in standardization. An engineer by training, with 40 years of professional experience, he has worked for 23 years at BDS, the Bulgarian Standardization Body.
He has been Chairman of BDS’s Governing Board since 2006. Previous to that, he was BDS’ President from 2002 to 2006. He was Vice-President of the Committee for Standardization and Metrology (CSM) and State Agency for Standardization and Metrology (SASM), the Bulgarian standardization organisations before BDS, between 1997 and 2001 and President of SASM from 2001 to 2002. He also served for 6 years as member of the National Accreditation Council to the Bulgarian Accreditation Body – Executive Agency “Bulgarian Accreditation Service (BAS)” and was the Bulgarian representative in international (ISO & IEC) and European (CEN & CENELEC) standardization management bodies. Mr Burov is also Chairman of TÜV Rheinland Bulgaria’s Committees of impartiality to the Product Certification Body and Management Systems Certification Body. He was elected as CENELEC Board Member for a two-year mandate starting in January 2023.
Mr Enda McDonnell is Head of Standards at NSAI, the National Standards Authority of Ireland, taking on this role from January 2016. From 2012 to 2015, Enda helped to build up the Standardization Services arm of QCC, the Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council - a powerful force in helping Abu Dhabi achieve its Economic Vision by underpinning the local Quality Infrastructure. Prior to 2000, Enda was involved in standardization as a technical expert, chairman of a national mirror committee, secretary of a national trade association and delegate in an international working group. This was mainly on the Electro-Technical side, as he previously worked in the electrical cable manufacturing industry. He has two Masters Degrees (MBA – Masters in Business Administration and MIE – Masters in Industrial Engineering) and a primary Engineering degree. Enda McDonnell is a Fellow of Engineers Ireland. He was a Board Member of CEN from 2018 to 2020 and has now been elected to serve as a Board Member for CENELEC for a mandate starting in January 2022.
Mr Giuseppe Molina is the Managing Director of CEI, Italy’s National Electrotechnical Committee, since 2020. Before that, he was at ENEL Group, Italy’s leading electricity and gas provider, where he held different management positions in his 25-year career: among his different roles, he was responsible for a series of power generation plants in Italy, CEO at ENEL Produzione (2014-2017), Head of the Brindisi Project (2017-2018) and Head of Components and Materials Quality. He has also extensive experience in business associations, having been appointed to a variety of Boards of Directors or Councils.
Mr Molina holds a Master’s degree in Electrotechnical Engineering from Politecnico di Torino. He was elected as CENELEC Board Member for a two-year mandate starting in January 2022.
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 re-elected as CENELEC Board Member for an additional two-year mandate starting in January 2023.
Óscar Querol is the Technical Manager at the Spanish Electrical Equipment Installation Manufacturers Association, AFME, since 2007, and the Secretary General of CECAPI, the European Electrical Equipment Installation Manufacturers Association, since 2016. Mr Querol is an expert advisor in standardization, conformity assessment, legislation and market surveillance for the electrotechnical sector. He is a member of the UNE Managing Directors Board since 2007 and, since 2018, he also serves as the President of the UNE Electrotechnical Commission. Furthermore, he is serving a second mandate (2021-2023) in the IEC Standardization Management Board (SMB) representing UNE. Throughout his career, Mr Querol has been involved in standardization activities since 2000, when he joined AFME and acted as secretary of many sectorial Technical Committees (TCs) at national level (UNE) and participated as Spanish representative and expert in the mirroring CENELEC and IEC TCs. An electrical engineer by training, Mr Querol also obtained a Program for Managing Director by IESE Business University of Navarra. Mr Querol was elected as a CENELEC Board Member at the end of 2022 and took up his role in January 2023.
Amanda Richardson is the Head of international Policy at BSI. In this role, she is responsible for BSI's external policy activities, leading the development of BSI policy and strategies for influencing the International (ISO, IEC) and European (CEN, CENELEC, ETSI) environments. This includes responsibility for ensuring the implementation of the policy decisions agreed by those organizations. This activity covers a broad range of policy areas, from detailed technical policy through to the strategic direction and governance of the European and International organizations, and it includes engaging with the UK government on policy development.
In addition to this, Mrs Richardson is the BSI representative to the ISO Technical Management Board and in this capacity is Chair of the ISO/IEC/ITU-T Standards Programme Coordination Group (SPCG). Amanda Richardson was elected to the CENELEC Administrative Board in 2022, for a mandate officially starting on 1 January 2023.
Mr Anders Richert is Technical Director and deputy General Director at the Swedish National Electrical Safety Board (Elsäkerhetsverket). He is also vice chairman of the board in SEK Svensk Elstandard. After graduating from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Mr Richert held numerous positions in Vattenfall. In the early 1990s, he was seconded to Unipede (EURELECTRIC) in Paris, dealing with electricity supply and standardization issues on a European level in cooperation with CENELEC. His career then took him to the Middle East working with transmission projects. Mr Richert was a Board Member of SEK Svensk Elstandard, representing the electricity industry, before joining the Safety Board and is now a member of the SEK Electrotechnical Committee and TK8. Mr Richert was a member of the CENELEC Administrative Board from 2017 to 2000 and was re-elected in the same role for a two-year mandate starting in January 2022.
Mrs Anna Tanskanen has been the Managing Director of SESKO, Finland’s National Electrotechnical Committee, since January 2021. Before that, she made a career in the electricity and electrotechnical private sector for Eltel Networks Corporation (2004-2010), Fortum Distribution Ltd (2010-2014) and Caruna Ltd (2014-2020), first as business development manager and then as Automation Manager. In this position, she also participated in standardization work at the national and international level, as a participant to the IEC’s Young Professionals-programme and as a member of SESKO SK 8 committee. Mrs Tanskanen holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Lappeenranta University of Technology, where she obtained also her Master’s degree. Mrs Tanskanen was elected as a CENELEC Board Member for a two-year mandate starting in January 2022.