JANAAC CEO Elected New IAAC Vice-Chair

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Jamaica National Agency for Accreditation (JANAAC), Sharonmae Shirley, has been appointed Vice-Chair of the Inter-American Accreditation Cooperation (IAAC).

Ms. Shirley, who has been a member of the IAAC since 2010, was appointed the role of Vice-Chair on August 19, following a unanimous vote during elections held at the IAAC’s 30th General Assembly meeting in the city of Antigua, Guatemala from, August 12-19, 2022.

While she has been elected to serve a two-year term as Vice-Chair, she will continue her duties as a member of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation – International Accreditation Forum (ILAC-IAF) Joint Development Support Committee, which she has been co-chairing since 2018.

Prior to her appointment, she served as Chair of the IAAC Management Committee (2016 – 2020) and Vice Chair of the IAAC Technical Committee (2020 – 2022).

She brings over 25 years of experience working with multilateral organisations and contributing to the fields of Accreditation, Conformity Assessment, Analytical Chemistry, Environmental Chemistry, and other specialised areas.

Coupled with her experience, she has a deep appreciation of the regional and accreditation issues of import.

In her new role, Ms. Shirley will support the Chair in advancing the development and implementation of strategies by the IAAC to facilitate trade among economies in the Americas, through the global acceptance of accreditations granted by its member accreditation bodies.

Ms. Shirley will work alongside the newly elected IAAC Chair, Andrea Melo, who was the former Vice-Chair of the IAAC.

Ms. Melo was also appointed into her role at the IAAC’s 30th General Assembly meeting held in August.

The IAAC membership includes accreditation bodies and other stakeholder organisations in North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

The mission of the IAAC is to promote cooperation among accreditation bodies and interested parties of the Americas, aimed at the development of conformity assessment structures to achieve the improvement of products, processes and services.

 – JIS