Alex de Wals has worked for TÜV NORD for over 11 years. Since April 2020 he is appointed as Vice President System Certification at TÜV UK Ltd.
Alex, please introduce yourself briefly.
My name is Alex de Wals. I studied Economics (Bachelor degree) and Marketing & Supply Chain Management (Master degree) in Tilburg. I live near Eindhoven (Netherlands) and I like to spend my free time with my family (wife and two children). Furthermore I enjoy endurance sports like cycling and running.
How long have you been with TÜV NORD and what are your responsibilities?
I have been working for TÜV NORD since 2009. During this time I had various functions, all with a commercial focus. In the last few years I was manager Sales and business development for the OBS system certification in the Netherlands. On 22 April I took on my additional role as Vice President System Certification TÜV UK Ltd.
How many members does your team have and what are your biggest challenges?
Currently, the System Certification UK team consists of six people (not including the freelance assessors who perform the audits). Our main challenges revolve around business development and growing of our local market share. There is a lot of knowledge within the company that we need to translate into market opportunities. Our main goal is to transform the company into a "market oriented" organization which can offer our certification customers the right service at the right time.
What are the plans for the future?
We see a great need for cyber security standards such as ISO 27001, TISAX and IEC 62443, and this will be one of our main growth areas. We also want to help and support our colleagues from international sales with corporate customers in the UK.