The social network LinkedIn has cancelled the account of Alex Dali, President of the G31000 Global Institute of Risk Management Standards after it was discovered that his profile contained plagiarized works and at least one false employment listing. In addition, the profile of G31000’s “Administrator” Madeleine Leblanc was cancelled after that profile was discovered to be fake, utilizing a photo of a cosmetics model. Mr. Dali improperly promoted the group as having “10,000+ employees” when it is believe the only employee was Mr. Dali himself.

G31000 offers personal certification for risk management professionals, and has been criticized by Oxebridge for being an unaccredited training institute.

As a result of the deletion of the Dali account, the G31000 LinkedIn discussion forum on ISO 31000 was deleted in its entirety, overnight. The group had reached over 30,000 readers, but was marred by controversy due to Mr. Dali’s reportedly “heavy handed” censorship and banning tactics. A number of former partners and business associates of the G31000 group were themselves banned by Mr. Dali for contradicting his viewpoints.

Oxebridge had previously reported on the controversies surrounding Mr. Dali’s plagiarism and the fake Leblanc account, which may have led to the LinkedIn decision.

With the LinkedIn group gone, G31000 is likely to struggle for relevance. The social network was Mr. Dali’s primary promotional outlet, and his numerous online profiles frequently pointed to it as a measure of his personal importance within the ISO 31000 sphere and risk management field.  The group was also responsible for organizing two international conferences on ISO 31000, and had been poised to wield considerable influence. With the outing of Mr. Dali’s risk management credentials as largely fabricated, and the questions now being asked about its alleged non-profit status, it is unlikely to recover.

Curiously, Mr. Dali is still listed as working with Manhattanville College, for the Education & Research Center for Managing Risk. The profile also still claims Mr. Dali has over 20 years’ experience in risk management, which Oxebridge largely discredited. The Dean of the Graduate Studies, Dr. Anthony Davidson, has been alerted to the false information and Mr. Dali’s plagiarism, but has not taken action.

UPDATE: Oxebridge has received word that Dr. Davidson is standing by Mr. Dali, even in light of the proof of previous misstatements on the Manhattanville College website.  As of March 14th, however, the page for Alex Dali has been deleted, presumably undergoing an update. Manhattanville’s risk center will be hosting the August 2014 G31000 conference, so this raises questions over the College’s willingness to investigate Mr. Dali since it has a stake in G31000’s success. Meanwhile at least three of the listed risk center’s “Executive Advisory Council” members have alerted Oxebridge that they are not actually on the council, had resigned, or have since asked to be removed; nevertheless, the College continues to benefit from their credentials by maintaining their listings.

With the publication of ISO 31000 and the inclusion of risk management anticipated in the ISO 9001:2015 revision, a number of dubious risk management professionals and certification programs have arisen. Users are cautioned to verify the credentials of such persons and organizations before purchasing any certifications or services from them.

CLARIFICATION 16 March 2014: In a previous version of this article, we discovered that the Founder of Formascope in France did not know who Alex Dali was, despite Mr. Dali claiming to have worked there. Per a posting on the G31000 website, we now have confirmation that Mr. Dali worked for a different “Formascope” in France, an organization he founded in 2009.

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Since 2000, Oxebridge has worked to improve ISO and related certification schemes by identifying problems and then proposing solutions. We report on issues affecting standards users because so few other news outlets do. Our belief is that in order to fix the problems in these schemes, we must first understand the nature and breadth of those problems. Our reporting aims to do just that. Elsewhere on the Oxebridge site you will find White Papers and other articles proposing ideas to correct these problems.