Mr Stefano Calzolari elected new President of CEN

Stefano Calzolari was elected for a three-year mandate (2022-24) during the CEN General Assembly, which was held online on 18 June. His mandate as President-Elect is officially due to start on the 1st of January 2021. During this time, Mr Calzolari will work side by side with the current CEN President, Vincent Laflèche, and the whole CEN team, before the official handover in January 2022. This process is foreseen to ensure continuity in the transition.

A civil engineer and entrepreneur, Stefano Calzolari was the President of Milan’s Order of Engineers from 2009 and 2016, and has been a Member of the Board of the “National Council of Engineers” since then, where he is in charge of standardization and certification of technical competences.

Furthermore, he has gained an extensive experience in standardization, both at technical level, as the Italian expert in CEN/TC 53 ‘Temporary Works Equipment’ and Chairman of CEN/TC 344 ‘Steel Static Storage System’, and at governance level: since 2017 he is UNI’s Vice-President. To these skills, he adds a professional background as an expert of qualifications, especially in the field of competences: he founded and chaired the Italian Agency for Voluntary Competences Certification, CERT’ING.

Mr Calzolari’s multifaceted experience puts him in an ideal position to manage technical and strategic aspects and the relationship with the European institutions, ensuring that CEN will continue to ensure a future-oriented, sustainable and efficient standardization system for the benefit of the European economy and society as a whole.

After his election, Stefano Calzolari commented: “Throughout my practical experience as an engineer, I have learnt that consensus, the true basis of standardization, is a difficult exercise: it gives the best results only when those who manage it are aware of their power and of the need to serve society’s highest principles and values to the benefit of the common good. In this regard, CEN and CENELEC play a key role in Europe’s growth and I am proud to be able to contribute: I believe that standardization can become more and more important for the harmonised development of the European economic and social model, for the competitiveness of its businesses and the life of its citizens”.