Principal Adviser & Mentor
A career spent shaping how organisations think about quality.
Dr. Nigel H. Croft is recognized as one of the world's foremost experts in management systems and conformity assessment. After graduating with First Class Honours from Cambridge University in 1977, his career has taken him from the British Steel Corporation’s graduate training programme in the UK; to a PhD in Metallurgy from Sheffield University; a prestigious Harkness Fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley (USA); to the North Sea Oil & Gas Industry; Director of Quality at a Brazilian specialty steel producer; President of a successful Management Consulting company in Brazil and, more recently, as an advisor to both public and private organizations worldwide. He currently Chairs or sits on the Board of a number of organizations around the world and is a Senior Consultant with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) where he has led or participated in more than 50 quality infrastructure-related projects over the last 20 years.
Nigel is a Fellow of the UK’s Chartered Quality Institute, a Senior Member of the American Society for Quality and a Certified AI Management Practitioner from the British Standards Institution. From 2010 to 2018 he was Chair of the ISO Committee TC176/SC2 with overall responsibility for the ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 standards (among others) and from 2021 – 2023 he chaired ISO’s Joint Technical Coordination Group, covering all ISO Management System Standards including, but not limited to ISO 9001 (Quality), ISO/IEC 27001 (Information Security), ISO/IEC 27701 (Personal Identity), ISO 22301 (Business Continuity) and ISO/IEC 42001 (AI Management).
In recent years, Dr. Croft has been intimately involved in the move towards digitalization of the global economy, and in particular the risks and opportunities associated with the exponential growth of Artificial Intelligence. He has authored/co-authored policy guidance documents for UNIDO, for the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Digital Access Programme and as a member of the UK Chartered Quality Institute’s Research Advisory Panel, focusing on the rise of “Quality 4.0”. As a certified BSI AI Management Practitioner, Nigel has coordinated workshops on the role of international standards in supporting digitalization policy for the Kenyan, Nigerian, Brazilian, South African, Indonesian and Vietnamese governments.
Selected industry awards, publications and appearances are listed below.
For more details, please see Nigel Croft's full biography on Wikipedia.
Connect
Follow Nigel on LinkedIn.
Influence on CroftSpurr
Methodology, not figurehead.
“Our methodology is shaped by the international standards experience of Dr. Nigel Croft and delivered through practical, hands-on implementation led by myself.”
— Matthew Spurr
Nigel does not personally deliver every client engagement. His role is to ensure that CroftSpurr’s approach reflects how management systems standards are intended to be applied — and to challenge the consultancy when it drifts toward bureaucracy rather than performance.
“Organizations do not succeed because they have management systems; they succeed because they consistently provide good products and services, make better business decisions, manage uncertainty, engage their people and continually improve. Well-designed management systems simply provide the framework to make that happen. My philosophy has always been that a management system should serve the organization—not the other way round. It should be integrated into the way the organization is led and managed, not treated as a bureaucratic overlay or a means of satisfying auditors. Drawing on decades of international experience in developing, implementing and auditing ISO standards, I advocate a pragmatic, evidence-based approach that helps organizations build trust, strengthen resilience, improve performance and deliver lasting value for customers, stakeholders and society.”
— Dr. Nigel Croft
Recognition
Industry awards.
UK Chartered Quality Institute — Honorary Award (2018)
“For his substantial contribution to the evolution of the ISO 9000 family — the world’s most popular set of quality management standards — and for his leadership on the development of ISO 9001, among other major standards, which has given companies worldwide the tools to drive improvement and embed quality across all aspects of the business.”
American Society for Quality — Freund-Marquardt Medal (2017)
“For his passion, dedication and leadership in the application of quality management principles to the development, promotion and implementation of quality management system standards on a global scale, for over twenty years.”
Latin American Quality Institute (INLAC) — Lifetime Achievement Award (2015)
For contributions to the quality profession.
QuEST Forum — Leadership Council Award (2005)
Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications (now part of the Telecommunications Industry Association) — for contributions to the Leadership Council, with a focus on global ICT quality, supply chain security and sustainability.
Selected publications
Books, guides and papers.
- Enabling digital transformation through international standards
with N. Kim — British Standards Institution / UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, London, 2026
- Quality Policy: Guiding Principles
with K. Tatranská — United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 2026
- Benefits and challenges of remote conformity assessment
Chartered Quality Institute, 2023
- Smart Quality Infrastructure — Shaping a sustainable future
with D. Gerundino and L. Colombo — ISBN 978-3-200-08771-2, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Vienna, 2022
- Remote Conformity Assessment in a Digital World — Opportunities, Challenges and Implications for Developing Countries
United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Vienna, 2022
- Trust but Verify — Managing Supply Chain Risks
with E.J. Fletcher — Offshore Technology Conference Proceedings p2634, Houston, 2022
Conference and video appearances
Selected talks and interviews.
- The New Generation of Management System Standards
Exemplar Global Auditor Conference, 2017
- Revision of ISO’s Annex SL High Level Structure for Management System Standards
Exemplar Global Auditor Conference, 2018
- Shaping The Digital Future
BSI Indonesia Podcast, Episode 11, 2023
- Benefits of ISO 9001 Certification
Interview at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia, 2016
- Discover the ISO 9001 Standard — Quality Management Systems
Interview with the ISO Central Secretariat, Geneva, 2015
- Why Quality and Standards Matter: A Message from Dr. Nigel Croft
National Quality Forum of Albania, 2024
- Dr. Nigel Croft on the Evolution and Impact of the ISO 9001 Auditing Practices Group (APG)
Interview for “Accreditation Matters”, International Accreditation Forum (now Global Accreditation Cooperation, Inc.), 2023
Acceptance speech for the CQI Honorary Award (2018)
Current advisory responsibilities
Boards and advisory roles.
QGA QMentum
São Paulo, Brazil — Hospital Accreditation Body
Chair of the Advisory Board
ITI International
Houston, USA — Oil and Gas Inspection Body
Chair of the Advisory Board
J-VAC Ltd
Tokyo, Japan — Management System Certification Body
Member of the Board and Associate Technical Director
APCER Group
Porto, Portugal — Management Systems Certification Body
Member of the Advisory Board and Chair of the Ethics Commission
Templum Consultoria
Florianópolis, Brazil — Digital Management Systems Consultancy
Member of the Advisory Board
Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency
Hong Kong — Quality and Certification Agency
Associate Technical Director