Interview With ASQ CEO Ann Jordan

This is the first installment of a five-part series.  

In May, Quality Digest editor in chief Dirk Dusharme and I attended ASQ’s 2022 World Conference on Quality and Improvement (WCQI) in Anaheim, California. It was the first in-person conference since Covid hit the world, and attendance was just over 1,000, about a third of what had been the norm.  

ASQ made their leadership available for wide-ranging  video interviews  covering everything from the future of the quality profession to the society’s new legal structure. Quality Digest  appreciates their efforts to help us provide valuable reporting to our readers.  

In all, we conducted five interviews with:
• ASQ’s CEO Ann Jordan
• ASQ’s board of directors
• ASQE’s (ASQ Excellence) CEO Jim Templin
• ASQE’s board of directors
• Both CEOs together, talking about their “connected journey”

This first installment of the series is our interview with ASQ CEO Ann Jordan. She joined ASQ in 2017 as general counsel, and began serving as interim CEO in January 2020, which was confirmed in January 2021.  

We started off with a look back at the 1980s,  when VPs of quality were popping up everywhere, and followed with where the profession is heading  today. We moved on to some frank discussion about ASQ membership and the drop in ISO 9001 certifications. The expectations of C-suites everywhere as well as a new generation of quality professionals were explored.  

We asked Jordon to summarize all this by answering our final question: In five words or less, what is the quality profession’s future?  

The clip below is a highlight of the interview. Listen to the full interview here

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