SAI Authorized Representatives

SAI Authorized Representatives are an important part of SAI’s global reach and local capacity-building efforts.  Authorized Representatives are local organizations that have a formal partnership agreement with SAI.  The organizations work closely with SAI to develop and deliver training, technical assistance and other services on behalf of SAI.

Representative Organization: 4-D Management Consulting
Contact: Badri Gulur
Location: Bangalore, India
Badri Gulur serves as a lead trainer and auditor for SAI as well as head of 4-D Management Consulting Ltd in Bangalore, India.  Mr. Gulur was formerly the Lead Auditor in ISO 9000 & ISO 14000 and the Country Manager for SA8000 for BVQI (Bureau Veritas Quality International), India.  Other experience includes working as a consultant for groups such as KPMG (India) Pvt. Ltd., USAID, and working as a researcher for Intervention (India) Pvt. Ltd. and the Waste Wise Project.

Representative Organization: BSD Consulting- Brazil
Contact: Beat Grüninger
Location: São Paulo, Brazil 
Beat Grüninger is a partner of BSD Group and Director of BSD Brazil after founding it in 1998 with other partners. Beat is certified as an Associate Sustainability Assurance Practitioner by IRCA/AccountAbility, London, and trained at Social Accountability International as an SA8000 auditor. He has been acting for several years as a consultant for Fairtrade and is currently a local manager leading a Transfair/USAID Responsible Sourcing Project in Brazil. Prior, Beat worked at the Swiss Committee for UNICEF as communications officer. Mr. Grüninger is a graduate of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, with a postgraduate degree in Developing Countries at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich).

Representative Organization: The Cahn Group, LLC
Contact: Doug Cahn
Location: United States
Doug Cahn is the principal of The Cahn Group, LLC, and has been a corporate responsibility and public policy executive for nearly 30 years. During that time, he has implemented corporate programs that address supply chain labor standards, human rights, environment, government relations, community relations, advocacy and communications. Mr. Cahn is a pioneer in applying corporate codes of conduct to factories owned and operated by third parties in Asia, Central America and Eastern Europe. He currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Fair Factories Clearinghouse, a member of the Board of Verité and a member of the Advisory Board of GoodWeave.

Representative Organization: Global Competitiveness Consultancy & Training
Contact: Peter Scott
Location: Quezon City, Philippines
Peter Scott is the director of Global Competitiveness Consultancy & Training, where he has advised many bodies, including UKAS, UK Department of Health, UK Department of Trade and Industry, UK Ministry of Defense, US Department of Defense, RAB, RvA, FSC, MSC, MAC, and more on certifier accreditation, standards production and certification issues.  His consultancy revolves around accredited performance and management system certification to the SA8000, ISO 9000, and ISO 14000 series of standards, product certification to CE, BS, UL, and CSA directives and standards, environmental performance certification to the Forest Stewardship Council and Marine Stewardship Council schemes.

Mr. Scott is also a senior lead auditor for SAAS Accreditation, and has been responsible for the initiation and development of many third-party certification schemes.  Mr. Scott handles certifier accreditation to the ISO 60 series guides and standards setting to the ISO Directives, including the WTO/TBT Annexes, and eco-labeling schemes such as Fair Trade.  Mr. Scott has also undertaken over 800 third-party audits to a large number of ISO and other international standards.

Representative Organization: Max Value
Contact: Edwin Koster
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Edwin Koster serves as Authorized European Representative of Social Accountability. He also advises companies, standard setting organizations and not for profit organizations on Corporate Responsibility and sustainable supply chain management. In his career he worked together with organizations like H&M, C&A, G-Star, Rabobank, the Better Cotton Initiative, WWF and the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. While working for Solidaridad and MADE-BY, he managed projects on sustainable agriculture, clean production and labour rights in China, India and Africa.

Representative Organization: Newport Consulting Group
Contact: William Newman
Location: United States
William Newman brings 25 years of experience in strategy and operations planning across multiple industry sectors. He is a Certified Management Consultant since 1995 and has led several consulting practices at Booz & Company, DMR Consulting, KPMG BearingPoint, and Grant Thornton. His focused service offerings include strategy formulation for high growth firms, sustainability planning, and program design and oversight. Newport Consulting Group is recognized as an SAP influence partner in addition to Mr. Newman participating as an outside board member to the Sustainability Executive Advisory Council (EAC) of SAP.  He is a graduate of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering at UCLA, and received his masters degree (MBA) at the Conrad L. Hilton School of Business at Loyola Marymount University. He is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Northwood University, a participant in the University of Oregon Sustainability Leadership Program, and a member of the McKinsey Quarterly Executive Panel.

Representative Organization: RSE Consultores
Contact: Yolanda Brenes
Location: San Jose, Costa Rica
Yolanda Brenes has worked for over a decade as a CSR specialist for key transnational corporations in the region, including Chiquita Brands International. Ms. Brenes works on SAI's programs throughout Latin America, and has developed inspection protocols and conducted trainings for labor inspectors under the USDOL Comply and Win program.

Representative Organization: Steven Oates Co.
Contact: Steven Oates 
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Steven Oates is an English solicitor by profession, and since September 2010 has been a freelance consultant on international labor standards; corporate social responsibility; human rights; social and labor rights at work and in development; gender equality; economic and social rights and globalization.  More recently, he was the Senior Adviser on Rights at Work in the office of the ILO Executive Director for Standards, and also served as the regional adviser on labor standards in Africa. He has long experience in supervision of the application of standards in the ILO, with a special interest in employment policy instruments.  His work has been aimed at obtaining better implementation of standards through cooperation in the field, work with IFIs and CSR.  He has studied also at Moscow, Tokyo and Harvard universities.

Representative Organization: Shenzhen Madison Technical Services Co., Ltd.
Contact: Mike Lee
Location: Shenzhen, China
Mike Lee is the managing director of Shenzhen Madison Technical Services Co., Ltd. (SMC). SMC was founded in 2001 and focused on to provide professional training, consulting and auditing solutions in a series of standards and schemes, including SA8000®, Social Fingerprint® , BSCI, EICC, Sedex, BRC, ISO9000, ISO/TS16949, ISO14000, OHSAS18000, and for different industry sectors, including toys, textiles, garments, electronics, hardware, automotive, jewellery, and ISO13485, cGMP for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing facility.  Mr. Lee is also a lead auditor for SAAS Accreditation Services, and a lead trainer of SAI Basic & Advanced Auditor Course in China. 

Mr. Lee has been worked as a full-time ISO9000 Lead Auditor in SGS International Certification Services (Hong Kong) from 1997 to 2000, and a contracted lead auditor of SA8000 and BSCI in TUV Rheinland Hong Kong Limited from 2003 to 2010.  He has undertaken over 800 third-party audits to a large number of ISO and other international standards. In his career he also worked as Quality Manager of RADICA Limited (an electronics manufacturing company, public listed in USA stock market) for more than 5 years. Mr. Lee has an M.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering from the Northeast China Institute of Electric Power Engineering, and a B.Sc degree in Electrical Engineering from Wuhan University. 

Representative Organization: Workplace Internal Regulatory Establishment (WIRE)
Contact: Sanjiv Singh
Location: Dubai, UAE
Sanjiv provides training on labor law interpretation and implementation to business sectors ranging from construction, manufacturing, services and trading. He also trains the labour inspectors at the UAE's Ministry of Labor on inspection methodology, social interaction, essential business skills and health and safety. He specializes in migrant workers rights and has been responsible for developing the 5-point social performance measurement tool for the Ministry of Labour, UAE.

Sanjiv comes from a background of 10 years in tea plantation management and has been a leader in promoting corporate social responsibility to business and governments in the Middle East. Sanjiv trains in English and Hindi. 

View a full list of SAI's expert lead trainers

Note: SAI does not have global trainers or authorized representatives in Egypt.  All inquiries regarding projects or programs in Egypt should be directed to SAI headquarters in NYC- info@sa-intl.org.