Consortium Chair and Vice-Chair
In their roles as Chair and Vice-Chair, Adam Leon Smith and Martin Schaffer play pivotal leadership roles in guiding the vision of the AIQI consortium. Their collective years of expertise, combined with that of our consortium members provides industry leading strategic insight, which is essential to ensure that the AIQI consortium is effective, responsive and accountable.
Adam Leon Smith is an expert in AI regulation and technical standards and works on research and strategy projects in that area. He is Chair of the AIQI Consortium, a global initiative to promote the use of the quality infrastructure for responsible AI, and Deputy Chair of the UK’s national AI standards committee. He has led four AI standardisation projects in ISO/IEC SC 42 as an Editor and two as a Convenor of SC 42 JWG 2 (Testing of AI systems). He is also very active at CEN/CENELEC JTC 21, where he is Project Leader for two projects in response to the AI Act - the Quality Management System for EU AI Act Regulatory Purposes, and AI System Logging. He is also Chair of the BCS Fellows Technical Advisory group.
Before involvement in quality infrastructure, Adam spent 20 years in senior technology roles, delivering verification and validation solutions for highly complex or high-risk industry challenges. In 2024, the University of Bath awarded Adam an honorary doctorate in recognition of his work and its impact on the profession.
Adam Leon Smith, Chair
Martin Schaffer is Global Head of Digital Innovation at SGS, the world’s leading Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) company. He drives digital growth through innovation, M&A, and startup engagements in emerging fields such as Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, and Extended Realities. Earlier at SGS, he pioneered the first Digital Trust Services, launching the company’s first Cybersecurity Laboratories and establishing SGS as a leader in cybersecurity testing and certification.
Holding a doctoral degree in Computer Science with a focus on System Security & Cryptography, Martin’s career began in research and academia before transitioning to NXP Semiconductors, where he held R&D roles spanning firmware engineering, security architecture, cryptography, and R&D management. He ultimately led a global security engineering team across 12 locations before joining SGS.
As the first chair of the European Cybersecurity Organisation’s Working Group 1 (ECSO WG1), he shaped the EU Cybersecurity Act, influencing European cybersecurity regulations. He has advised ENISA’s executive director, Members of the European Parliament, and the European Commission. Martin also served on the Board of Eurosmart, represented SGS in the Charter of Trust, and remains an active member of the European Commission’s Stakeholder Cybersecurity Certification Group.
Since late 2023, he has been Chair of the TIC Council’s Digitalization Working Group, leading the digital transformation strategy for the TIC industry on a global scale.