Kevin Knight, the perpetually self-promoting, narcoleptic Chair of the ISO TC 262 on risk management, continues to abandon both common sense and his own profession by failing to assess the risks associated with promoting G31000, the disgraced unaccredited ISO 31000 training certificate mill run by serial plagiarist Alex Dali. Meanwhile, he’s refused to take action in his own ISO Technical Committee, watching it fall apart before him, giving the impression he’s more interested in using the “TC 262 Chair” credential to market himself, rather than to .. you know .. actually do the work required of it.
(I could pepper this article with links, but just click this one for the whole list.)
If you remember, Dali was discovered to have been posing as a woman named “Madeleine LeBlanc” on LinkedIn, using a photo of a (get ready) eyebrow model on his profile. The profile was deleted after he was exposed, but that was the tip of the iceberg. It was later discovered that nearly all (if not all) of Dali’s alleged publications on risk management were plagiarized, each almost in their entirety, and a number of “partners” listed on his G31000 site had never agreed to work with the group, much less lend their names to its promotion. In fact, a number of former G31000 partners have since bolted, and later revealed that Dali was putting them under pressure to dilute the exams and course materials for his unaccredited ISO 31000 Risk Manager “certifications” so that nearly anyone could pass.
Finally, we learned that Dali has an outstanding arrest warrant in Singapore, for previous criminal activity; an alert has been put on Dali to have him arrested should he step foot in the country. All of this led to a number of high-profile speakers dropping their plans to attend G31000 events, including White House risk management expert Dr. Karen Hardy. US TAG 176 “ethics expert” Paul Palmes later stepped in to replace Duffy at the event, presumably because Palmes — like Knight — is more interested in promoting himself, rather than worrying about pesky “ethics.” Even ISO TMB’s Susan LK Briggs was also seen scurrying around the dumpsters behind a G31000 event.
Dali and his ex-partner Allen Gluck — also a member of the US TAG to TC 176 — attempted a lawsuit against Oxebridge to stop reporting on the G31000 group, but it was thrown out of court. Gluck later split from Dali, forming his own US-based risk management training organization.
Throughout it all, Knight has been appearing at G31000 events. When he was confronted with the controversies surrounding Dali and G31000, he dismissed them, saying:
The G31000 conferences have to date brought together an interesting group of people who are interested in 31000 and its application and I see no reason not to continue participating as a speaker. Whatever other activities G31000 is engaged in does not change the fact that the participants in their conferences to date have been risk management practitioners who are the people I need to communicate and consult with.
Knight later appeared at a G31000 event that discussed ISO 31000 management system certification, a concept promoted by Alex Dali but which doesn’t actually exist. In a baffling response to questions on the subject, Knight denied the event discussed such certifications, even though both pre- and post-event documentation showed that was exactly what was discussed. So either Knight was lying, or his memory is failing faster than his ethical core.
Now his own TC 262 is imploding, calls are mounting for his ouster, and his “absentee landlord” management style has led to an unprecedented call to disband the Working Group tasked with revising ISO 31000. Knight has been asked to step in and manage the crisis, but has refused outright. Word from within says that ISO itself is furious, since Knight’s bumbling is delaying publication of a new ISO 31000 standard, thus impacting on their primary source of revenue. ISO rewards incompetence only to the point that it doesn’t affect its cash flow, so Knight is doomed.
Knight is considered the architect of ISO’s new love affair with risk management, allegedly having been instrumental in convincing the ISO Technical Management Board to include risk in all management system standards, via the Annex SL mandate. If so, his recent actions may explain how this was possible: as an aggressive serial self-promoter, Knight may have simply steamrolled over the glassy-eyed, intellectual lightweights on the TMB, thus convincing them to adopt whatever he suggested. It’s a good thing Knight wasn’t selling Amway, or we’d be drowning in pyramid scheme soap products.
At some point, Knight will be ejected from the TC. To date, ISO appears to be trying to play out the clock and wait for his term to end, but Knight’s utter incompetence is tarnishing the ISO brand, so their patience may be wearing thin. And whatever legacy Knight thinks he has, he’s lit it on fire, ensuring he goes down in history as the guy who set ISO standards back a decade or more, all for the purposes of promoting himself.
In the meantime, if you need a speaker at, say, your kid’s lemonade stand or an ISIS rally, Knight’s probably open to it. Microphones are like his catnip.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
