Past Member

Klaus-Dieter Naujok

chair since 2011/06 until 2017/02 convenor (jwg1) since 2007/09 until 2017 convenor (wg5) since 2011/06 until 2017/02 convenor (wg7) since 2016/10/21 until 2017/02 convenor (cag) until 2017/02

Representing DIN, Germany

It is with heavy hearts we receive the news that our former chairman Klaus Dieter Naujok has passed away. It is clear that, although he had to step down as chairman in 2017 for health reasons, his legacy is still very present and will live on within ISO/TC 154.

Mr Naujok was part of a select group of people that designed and promoted the information exchange standards within the United Nations and ISO, that we now commonly refer to as Electronic Data Interchange, EDI. The impact has been tremendous in trade facilitation and global commerce. But for Mr Naujok this was not enough. His ultimate goal was the implementation of open-EDI. This ISO standard (ISO/IEC 14662:2010) that describes how an open, as opposed to bilaterally agreed, information exchange be achieved has been discussed for a long time but arguably no one has taken more tangible steps towards achieving this. He initiated, then chaired, the ebXML initiative as a joint project between the UN and OASIS, he furthered work in semantic interoperability and invited De Jure and De Facto standards organisations to the table to collaborate.

He sometimes became controversial as an outspoken advocate of these values. These are the true colours of a pioneer and believer. Mr Naujok worked a period for a Californian company called Harbinger. This company no longer exists but we sense that Mr Naujok embraced the name and made it a motto for our technical committee.

Rest in Peace.

Ms. Hongru Zhu, Chair of ISO/TC 154

Mr. Jianfang Zhang, ISO/TC 154 committee manager

Klaus-Dieter Naujok has been a successful CEO, CSO, CTO, EVP and Director/Standards and Technology in the computer software industries. He was the Chairman of ebXML, a joint international initiative between UN/CEFACT (Center for Electronic Business and Trade) and OASIS, created to develop standard methodologies and frameworks for the development of fully interoperable XML technology.

Currently he serves as the chair of ISO/TC 154 (International Organization for Standardization – Technical Committee for Processes, data elements and documents in commerce, industry and administration). He also is the Convenor for ISO/TC 154/JWG 1 (Joint Working Group for EDIFACT Syntax) and ISO/TC 154/WG 5 (Representation of Dates and Times).

He also led the ISO/IEC/ITU/UNECE MoU/MG “Proof of Concept” project to address the Semantic Interoperability problem amongst eBusiness Directories and Libraries. This very successful project explored the potential to augment existing domain-specific e-Business standards with a common layer of shared semantics, and to provide links between that shared semantic view and more specialized, domain-specific views of the data.

Recently he served as President for Global e-Business Advisory Council (Ge-BAC). As the founder he was responsible for the company’s vision and strategy, and the technology aspects of the business plan.

Other recent positions were: Chief Technology Officer of AXATA (2002-2003); Chief Scientific Officer of IONA Technologies (2001-2002); CTO of NetFish (2000-2001); EVP/Emerging Standards and Technologies of NextERA Interactive (2000); Director, Standards and Technologies of Harbinger (1990-2000).

He also held until recently the position of Chairman of UN/CEFACT’s Techniques & Methodologies Group (TMG). He has held numerous leadership roles in the International Standards arena for the past thirty years. These include being the Chairman of ebXML, co-chair of the EDIFACT Technical Assessment Group, vice-chair of X12’s Technical Assessment Committee, and chair of X12’s Liaison Task Group. A number of awards include DISA’s Ed Gilbert Professional Award. In 2005 he was also named Member Emeritus by the X12 Steering Committee in appreciation of his contributions.