IAF held its 36th General Assembly online on 17 November, as part of the 2022 ILAC-IAF Joint Annual Meetings. Attendees heard a variety of reports, including updates on implementation of the IAF 2020-2025 Strategic Plan, IAF CertSearch, financial matters, committee work and the increases in IAF Members and IAF MLA signatories.
 
IAF Board and Executive Committee member Ekanit Romyanon (NSC), Director Representing Low and Medium Income Economy Accreditation Bodies and Accreditation Body Information Exchange Group Co-Chair, finished his term at the IAF General Assembly. We thank Mr. Romyanon for his dedicated service to IAF in this role, as well as his previous work as IAF Technical Committee Chair.
 
Mr. Romyanon has been succeeded by Rajesh Maheshwari (NABCB), who was elected for an initial three-year term ending at the 2025 General Assembly. We extend a warm welcome to Mr. Maheshwari.
 
Mr. Maheshwari was also appointed as the new IAF Database Management Committee (DMC) Chair at the IAF Board meeting on 18 November, succeeding Matt Gantley (UKAS). Mr. Gantley’s term as DMC Chair saw dramatic changes for IAF CertSearch, including agreement by IAF Members to move the database to a user-pays funding model, and to make participation in the database mandatory for IAF MLA signatory accreditation bodies under the main scope ISO/IEC 17021-1 and their relevant accredited certification bodies. We thank Mr. Gantley for his extensive work, and are pleased to announce that he will be continuing his participation in the DMC as Vice-Chair.
 
IAF Quality Manager Mario Andrade Castro (EMA) also left his position in 2022, stepping down in September after two years in the role. We thank Mr. Andrade Castro for his work overseeing the IAF Management System during this time, and extend our appreciation to Mr. Pedro Alves (IQNET), who has been appointed by the IAF Board to serve as Interim Quality Manager for the remainder of 2022. Mr. Hamza Khan (GAC [GCC]) will assume the role as of 01 January 2023.
 
Subsequent to the meeting, IAF Members approved a list of draft resolutions by ballot, including a resolution to approve the 2023 IAF budget. These have now been published on the IAF website and can be viewed here.
 
We hope to be able to meet in person in 2023, to better enable the exchange of opinions and productive discussion. The IAF/ILAC Joint Midterm Meetings are currently scheduled to take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland from 01-09 May, while the IAF/ILAC Joint Annual Meetings are scheduled to take place in Montréal, Canada from 09-18 November.