If you had told the 29-year-old version of me that the people sitting next to me in an IT office in 1998 would still be part of my professional world in 2026, I would have laughed. And yet, here we are at our Christmas party last year. Five of us – my husband (yes, I married one of them!), three contractors, and me. We all met in 1998.

Most ISO professionals say they’re not there to catch people out. But they never reset the power dynamic out loud.

For years, I carried a notebook everywhere with me. It was at work, sitting beside my keyboard. It was in my handbag when I went out for coffee. It lived in the car. If an idea came to me, it went straight into that notebook.

I was asked a really good question recently by someone transitioning from an employee role into ISO consulting. They’d had solid experience in the industry, worked across systems, conducted audits, guided teams, and delivered real outcomes, but they stopped and said, “I get all that… but how do I build my credibility as a consultant?”

When I first audited an industrial equipment business many years ago, the owner made it clear that having a certified quality management system was not something he wanted. Certification was a requirement from his customers rather than a strategic choice, and while he agreed to implement it, there was a clear sense of reluctance behind the decision. Quality, in his mind, meant extra work, unnecessary paperwork, and disruption to how the business already operated.

I worked with an organisation where quality had a clear owner. There was a dedicated quality role, years of experience, and a strong grasp of the standard. The system itself was well documented. Procedures were current. Audit results looked respectable. On paper, it all stacked up.