BSI Executive

Howard Kerr was appointed to the Board in November 2008 and assumed the position of Chief Executive in January 2009. After a period at Associated British Ports, his early career was spent in business development roles in the fields of shipping, logistics and B2B marketing with Inchcape PLC in the UK, Japan, China and the Middle East.  Subsequently he joined SHV Holdings NV, where he held general management positions in the energy division, including Chief Executive of Calor Group Ltd, UK, and Senior Vice-president on the International Management Board of SHV Gas in the Netherlands.

Craig Smith joined the Board as Group Finance Director in August 2011. A Chartered Certified Accountant, he began his career in 1985 with Coats Viyella PLC, undertaking finance roles in Australia, Spain, the UK, Morocco, Hungary and Finland. On his return to the UK in 1997 he was European Finance Director for two large American corporations in the product identification and printing ink industries. Immediately prior to joining BSI he was Group Finance Director of two UK-listed companies, Huntleigh Technology PLC from 2003 to 2007 and Management Consulting Group PLC from 2007 onwards.

Scott Steedman joined the Group in January 2012 and was appointed to the Board in October 2012. An engineer by background, he started his career at the University of Cambridge before moving to industry where he spent over 20 years as a consultant working in the Built Environment sector. He was a Non-Executive Board Member of the Port of London Authority from 2009 to 2015 and served as Vice-President (Policy) for the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) from 2013 to 2017. He is currently Vice-President (Policy) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Shirley Bailey-Wood was appointed as Director, BSI Information Solutions for BSI Standards in December 2014, having been BSI’s Director of Publishing since 2011.  Shirley is responsible for the leadership and strategic development of BSI Standards Limited.  Shirley joined BSI in 2004 as Operations Director for the Standards Division, with responsibility for the Standards Development teams including the standards portfolio and its development and the business operations supporting it. Shirley has extensive experience of the publishing and information sector, with previous positions as the Executive VP for the Life Science and Chemistry Division of Thomson Scientific; European Sales and Marketing Director for Maxwell Communications (The Thomson Corporation) and Information Scientist at the Glaxo Group.  Shirley was awarded an MBE in 2012 for Services to the Knowledge Economy. She was elected to the Council of Trustees of the Consumers Association in January 2016. 

Grainne Brankin joined the Group in June 2017 as General Counsel and Company Secretary. Grainne qualified at Clifford Chance and has experience of a wide range of international corporate and commercial transactions, in particular in technology and media. She has held General Counsel and executive committee positions at Yahoo!, CBS Outdoor, Exterion Media and Centaur Media PLC.

Pietro Foschi is in charge of the BSI Assurance Services, including Management System Certification, Product Certification and Training global businesses, operating in over 190 countries. He joined BSI in 2014 as Strategic Delivery Director, responsible for the BSI’s strategic plan and the development of the global Systems Certification & Training streams. Before joining BSI, Pietro spent 14 years at Bureau Veritas in senior strategic and international operational roles. Prior to that he worked at Oliver Wyman, formerly Mercer Management Consulting, becoming a partner in their Paris office.

Manuela Gazzard was appointed Group Director of Regulatory Services in July 2018, having joined BSI in April 2017 to head up its healthcare sector strategy as Managing Director of Healthcare.  In her current role, Manuela is responsible for leading the medical devices business including medical devices assessment, manufacturer audits and both the UK and Netherlands notified bodies. She has over twenty years of leadership experience in the global life sciences sector including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biotech, and other related fields. Her previous positions include Managing Director, NovaPrep and Lab Services at Novacyt; Group Commercial Director, Johnson Matthey/Macfarlan Smith; and Director positions at Johnson & Johnson/Janssen and Boehringer Ingelheim. Before starting her industry career Manuela worked internationally in cancer research. She holds a doctorate in Natural Sciences (Physics and Chemistry) from the University of Stuttgart and a Business degree from the University of Cape Town. 

Harold Pradal joined BSI in February 2019 as the Group Commercial Director. Harold is responsible for shaping and delivering BSI’s vision, commercial strategy and key initiatives to support business growth across all business streams, sectors and geographies. Harold started his career at GE Healthcare with responsibility for sales and marketing in Europe, Middle East and Africa and later as the Marketing Director for Asia-Pacific. In 2009 he moved to International SOS working in a variety of senior, strategic, operational and leadership roles in the Asia-Pacific region and in 2016 was promoted to Regional General Manager of Asia Pacific. Harold has a Biomedical Engineering Degree from the Université du Droit et de la Santé de Lille and an Master in Business from the ILIS Faculté d’Ingénierie et Management de la Santé.

Thorsten Querfurt joined BSI in September 2019 as Group Director of Consulting Services. Thorsten is responsible for shaping and delivering the business stream’s strategy, which involves growing its existing consultancy business globally in a number of key practice areas including Sustainability, Environmental, Health and Safety, Supply Chain, Cyber security and Information Resilience. Thorsten has spent the last two decades working in and leading international Professional Services businesses. Prior to joining BSI, he was Head of International Region for Mannaz A/S, a leadership development consultancy and before that he was Global Head of Natural Resources Industry for Willis Towers Watson, a leading insurance broker and human capital advisory.  Thorsten started his management consulting career with Corven Consulting, which was acquired by Oliver Wyman where he left as Partner of the Energy Practice. Educated in Hong Kong, Germany, France and the USA, Thorsten has a BSc in Business Administration from the University of Delaware and an MBA from London Business School. 

Alison was appointed in April 2020 as Group HR Director. She has had extensive HR and leadership experience within complex listed global businesses in APAC, EMEA and North America such as Experian plc, Orica Limited, Rolls Royce plc, BAe Systems, Cabot Inc and Brambles Limited. She brings direct experience of many of our key sectors spanning Aerospace, Specialty Chemicals, Manufacturing, Utilities and infrastructure businesses, and latterly Data and information services where digital skills are a key feature.