An expert in the governance of healthcare, financial services, water utilities and manufacturing, Jan Begg chairs the Committee of IT Governance and Management. Along with a range of standards developed and shaped for international usage, Jan is working on standardisation of digital governance.

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Jan Begg has been a long serving contributor to Standards Australia. For the past decade, she’s held the position of Chair for the Technical Committee of IT Governance and Management. With a career spanning over 30 years, Jan is more than qualified to lend her expertise to the formation of Australian standards and their contribution to international standardisation.

“I first got introduced to Standards Australia in 2008 when I was setting up my consulting company. As part of developing my company I had many face-to-face meetings with industry experts, some of whom were actively working in standards development. Mark Toomey really encouraged me to get involved and bought me along to a meeting and I’ve never looked back,” Jan explained.  

“I’m immensely proud of my committee, not just for the work we develop for the international and local stage, but due to our diversity of members. Locally we have active involvement from a wide range of nominating organisations and internationally we have the highest amount of female participation in committee leadership roles, and I hope this diversity of thought just continues to grow,” Jan continued.  

Currently a board member for Uniting AgeWell, Jan is an experienced non-executive company director and Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).

Jan’s international consulting experience in strategy, M&A, business transformation and technology spans many industries. She is an expert in principle-based standards and the Chair of the ISO international standards committee on IT Governance, Service Management and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) with over 50 country members.

In addition to her board and committee roles, Jan provides independent governance, coaching and health check reviews to major corporations and governments to improve risk awareness, sponsorship effectiveness and return of investment in significant change initiatives. More recently, Jan has been involved in the creation and implementation of standards around the governance of responsibilities around investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI).

When it comes to standards development, Jan said: “I truly believe standards development needs diverse voices and that they must be written for the end user and developed by those who have the relevant expertise. Ultimately standards development, certification and practical use must all be well balanced and considered to allow organisations to be successful”.

“When it comes to the future, I think my area of work and standards development needs further thought on digital governance frameworks that are specific to industry and strategy. Standards must continue to provide higher level guidelines and there’s a real role and opportunity for Standards Australia and relevant government bodies to provide resources for smaller businesses to understand and utilise these documents,” Jan continued.

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“Jan is a true pioneer when it comes to governance and the development of local and international standards. Her dedicated, continued efforts in the field have greatly benefited standards users and will continue to positively impact Australians,” said Adrian O’Connell, Chief Executive Officer at Standards Australia.