#218 Driving ISO Implementation – Meet the Consultant: Derek Hall

May 21, 2025

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The world of ISO is often stumbled into as a result of being tasked with either Implementing or maintaining a Standard for a business. It is rarely a desired career path, and yet there are thousands of ISO professionals from all corners of the globe.

We’re continuing with our latest mini-series where we introduce members of our team, to explore how they fell into the world of ISO and discuss the common challenges they face while helping clients achieve ISO certification.

In this episode we introduce Derek Hall, a Senior Isologist® and Sustainability Lead at Blackmores, to learn about his journey from spending 40 years in the printing industry to becoming an ISO Consultant, and what drives him to help clients on their ISO journey.

You’ll learn

· What is Derek’s role at Blackmores?

· What does Derek enjoy outside of consultancy?

· What path did Derek take to become an ISO Consultant?

· What is the biggest challenge he’s faced when implementing ISO Standards?

· What is Derek’s biggest achievement?

Resources

· Isologyhub

· Climate Change Amendment Workshop

In this episode, we talk about:

[02:05] Episode Summary – We introduce Derek Hall, a Senior Isologist® here at Blackmores, to discuss his journey towards becoming an ISO consultant who specialises in ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 22716.

[03:45] What is Derek’s role at Blackmores? Derek is a Senior Isologist® with Blackmores, supporting companies with maintaining systems, undertaking internal audits, and supporting with implementing new systems to gain certification utilising our Isology methodology.

His passion lies in the realm of sustainability, embedding it within the management systems of many of our clients regardless of any certification to any dedicated sustainability Standard.

Derek was worked with a number of sectors, including:-

· Media

· Printing

· Constructions

· Cosmetics

· Recycling

· Electrical

· Public Sector & NHS

Derek enjoys the learning aspect of working with new industries, and values the input from all personnel involved, from top management to those on the shop floor. He well and truly immerses himself within each company he works with to learn about their values and how ISO can best support their vision.

[08:30] What does Derek enjoy doing outside of consultancy?: Derek has a few varied hobbies, including oil painting born out of his other passion, photography. He often uses his own photos as subject matter for his paintings.

He also trains 4-5 times a week at his local karate club, which caters for all ages and skill sets. Derek has diligently worked his way up to black belt over the 17 years he’s been attending, and offers his skills to teach sessions.

He appreciates the respect that karate teaches, in addition to gaining more knowledge on other points of view. With such a varied class, there’s always something new to learn.

The Australian based club he attends is called GKR Karate.

[12:20] What was Derek’s path towards becoming an ISO Consultant?: Derek’s journey starts back in the 60’s, where he worked in commercial photography, taking pictures on the progress of various building works, and products for furniture stores.

He used to work with plate photography, which was a rather old school method even back then! This was coupled with more modern methods such as 35 millimeter film. He recalls witnessing the building of the Thames barrier, taking pictures to help monitor the amount of water coming through the barrier.

After that he moved onto work for a printing company in Barnet (Hertfordshire), which specialized in advertisements and signage for furniture stores. From the shop floor Derek worked his way up to becoming a printer operative.

This company evolved to include screen printing, which allowed for more versatile applications such as clothing or certain plastics.

After spending 3 and a half years there he moved on with a friend to start their own printing company in Watford, which continued until the 70’s.

In the 70’s Derek joined a much larger printing company based in Southgate London. Here he was involved in the printing of cinema posters for theatres, and musical groups. Derek remained there for 40 years, watching it evolve to larger scale printing for retail markets such as HMV Records and curry’s, in addition to bus advertisements.

During the 90’s, there was a larger push for quality Standards, their clients wanted more assurance that they were following established guidelines and could produce the quality they were after. So, Derek was tasked with Implementing BS 5750, ISO 9001’s precursor, and BS 7750, ISO 14001’s precursor.

The company then got involved in an eco management audit scheme called EMAS, which required the reporting of environmental impacts. It was similar to ISO 14001, but it’s regulatory reporting requirements more closely align with modern schemes such as ESOS.

They also introduced other schools of thinking such as Kaizen, for the purpose of continual improvement.

At this point, Derek became very involved with sustainability standards, and developed a concept called ‘The Tree of Sustainability’, which included 9 branches for improvement. This was introduced due to the fact that their industry by its current nature, wasn’t very sustainable. There was a lot that could be done to reduce their impact.

Through developing that project Derek got involved with the DTR project called ‘The Sigma Guidelines’, a backed scheme run by the BSI forum and The Accountability Institute. These guidelines outlined a 3-year project to identify what sustainability meant to them and how it could apply to their industry.

The result of their work on this project was then submitted to various awards, netting them a number of sustainability awards and The Accountability Institute Awards.

That company continued its operations until 2007, leading to Derek joining Blackmores first year of operation in 2008.

Derek is leading us down a similar sustainability path by encouraging us to become a signatory of the Terra Carta, an initiative including 100 different actions for nature, people and planet.

[26:40] What is Derek’s favourite aspect of being a Consultant? – Derek has a few, including:

Building relationships with clients – Many of Dereks clients have been working with him for over 10 years. He’s as much friends with them as he is a work colleague.

Flexible approach – Consultancy can be delivered in many different ways, allowing for hybrid working. This flexible approach also applies to the way we achieve internal targets, with each member of the team being given specific goals with the freedom to choose how they reach them. Everyone has their own way of working, and we encourage all members of the team to work how they like with the opportunity to learn from each other.

[28:35] What Standards does Derek specilaise in and why? Starting with:

· ISO 9001 Quality Management: A core foundation that many businesses start with when diving into the world of ISO Standards. Derek started with it’s predecessor, and has watched it develop over the years. He appreciates the value it can bring, especially to SME’s who are looking for a scalable model for success.

· ISO 14001 Environmental Management: Derek is a fan of sustainability in general, and encourages everyone to implement some of it’s requirements as part of any project.

· ISO 22716 Good Manufacturing Practices for the Cosmetics Industry: A rather niche quality standard for the cosmetic industry, this Standards works well in collaboration with ISO 9001 for a more holistic approach.

· ISO 45001 Health and Safety Management: Derek picked up this Standard as a result of his work with the construction industry. It’s importance as a tool to prevent harm to humans cannot be understated.

· ESG: Derek has been working closely with his colleague, Ali Henshaw, to develop an ISO based framework to tackle ESG requirements. This includes inputs and requirements from guidance standards such as ISO 20400 (Sustainable Procurement) and ISO 26000 (Social Responsibility)

· ISO 22301 Business Continuity: A lot of organisations are looking to implement aspects of business continuity as a result of the ever-changing resilience landscape.

[32:20] The link between business continuity and climate change: We have seen client requirements evolve to include various elements of business continuity in response to the increasing threats of cyber incidents and climate change related issues.

This is reflected in the recently introduced Climate Change Amendment to many commonly implemented ISO Standards. This requirement ensures that businesses consider their impact on climate change in addition to, how and if they would be affected in turn. If you would like to learn more about this, listen to a previous episode or watch our Workshop playback.

[34:20] What is the biggest challenge Derek had faced during a project and how did he overcome it?: Derek took on the challenge of implementing ISO 22716, when he knew very little about the Standard and the cosmetics industry as a whole. Though there were a few stumbles on his first attempt, they managed to get certified without issue.

That same company then wanted his help to implement ISO 14001, which is a tough ask for the cosmetics industry. There are a lot of factors to consider, such as:

· What is their environmental impact?

· Where are you sourcing materials?

· Are the ingredients shipped from across the globe or sourced locally?

· Is there any animal testing involved?

· How sustainable was their supply chain?

There was a lot to get through, but it was a beneficial choice to get a full picture of their environmental cost.

Later, the company opted to implement ISO 9001 in addition to their existing Iso 22716 and ISO 14001 certifications. This fit nicely as both ISO 22716 and ISO 9001 are quality based Standards, they complemented each other and created an effective and holistic management system.

[27:20] What is Derek’s proudest achievement? Derek received an MBE from the late Queen for services in the environment in 2005. This was earned through his sustainability work within the print industry.

For those not familiar, the Queens Award (now the King’s Award) is a prestigious award that requires 3 levels of review and vetting before winners can be announced. It includes checking evidence provided and the financials involved to verify if applicants have achieved what they say they have achieved.

Derek, along with his wife and daughters, were invited to the palace to meet the queen and receive his award.

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