Business Continuity can sometimes be a lonely road. Though the work seemingly touches all parts of the business, you’re oftentimes focused on a parallel track of activity that isn’t normally top of mind with your business partners. So what can you do to change this?  This week on the podcast, we’re going to be talking about the idea of embedding your program into other parts of the business to cultivate partnerships and demonstrate value long before an incident. Guest Bio: Jamie Goodloe is a Solutions Engineer in the Professional Services division of OnSolve, partnering with clients to devise and implement mass notification solutions and crisis response programs. Jamie has worked in the BC field for over 12 years at companies such as Capital One and USAA. She carries an MBCP and AFBCI certification, as well as is an active member of her local ACP. She has spent time managing and building business continuity programs, technical disaster recovery programs, and executive level crisis response programs. Her unique background working in each of these spaces in depth has given her a great understanding of the interconnectivities of the profession and how the overall programs can further embed into companies to achieve greater success and adoption. Links: Jamie Goodloe Linkedin  

Episode Summary: This week on the show we’re interviewing Ricky Wells, the General Manager at ServiceMaster Advanced Restorations. Ricky has been helping companies restore their facilities after major fires, spills and disruptions.  And he’s a big advocate for the act of pre-planning for these events.  We’re also going to hear what his company is doing in the age of COVID- when offices are trying to wrap their heads around what “clean” versus “COVID clean” really means. Guest Bio: Ricky Wells serves as the General Manager for ServiceMaster Advanced Restorations. With over 20 years of experience in Property Restoration, he assists customers as they struggle with property loss whether from fire loss, water damage, storm events, mold remediation, or any other property loss. Ricky values education in the industry and serves as an instructor for continuing education for insurance and property specialists. In the past 20 years he has taught over 3000 hours of classes with over 1000 students sitting through his classes. Ricky guides ServiceMaster as a customer centric business. The motto that he and the company live by says it all:  "Restoration is our profession, but restoring lives is our passion." Links: Service Master Advanced Restoration Service Master's 5-Step Process for Water Restoration Twitter Linkedin Facebook

Episode Summary: This week, we talk with IT thought-leader Daniel Breston, who believes that AI could also prove to be a "valuable ally" in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of activities related to Business Continuity. Current technological maturity, with the help of enormously powerful hardware systems that are capable of performing computational calculations, have made the previously unthinkable, reachable. And our industry is now positioned to apply this capability directly to our work- from planning, to early detection and response. Daniel talks about it all! Guest Bio: With 40+ years of international technology management experience, as a CIO and other titles, I have a personal awareness of the challenges IT managers face. My goal is to help IT Managers overcome these challenges in a practical manner by acting as a sounding board and advisor. In my spare time, I co-author practices in IT supplier management (SIAM) and a digital ITSM (VeriSM), speak at conferences and webinars, facilitate discussions in organizations on technology and enjoy waling the UK with my wife and dog. Links: Email Linkedin Twitter

Episode Summary: This week, Shane talks with James Green, Director of Risk Advisory Services for SAI Global. James recently wrote a featured article in the Disaster Recovery Journal called: "Is Our Profession at a Crossroads?" where he asked and tried to answer the question that many in our profession have been asking- Why was the role of business continuity seen so non-vital, that it was included in layoffs?   Guest Bio: James Green is the Director of Risk Advisory Services at SAI Global.  James is passionate about business continuity and helps C-Suites around the world make their organizations more resilient not just during an incident, but as a fundamental part of day to day operations. James has spent the majority of his career in the financial services industry and has worked on risk events that have occurred all over the globe, whether it was civil unrest in Egypt during the Arab Spring or typhoons in the Pacific Rim.  Previously, Green was the global head of business continuity for Sykes Enterprises, a business process outsourcer with 50,000 employees and 80 locations worldwide. James holds the MBCI designation from the Business Continuity Institute, the Certified Business Continuity Professional certification from the Disaster Recovery Institute International and is recognized as an Enterprise Risk Management Expert by the Credit Union National Association. James is a sought-after speaker, and has been interviewed by multiple publications, on the topics of workplace violence and integrated risk management. In 2020 he was named the Business Continuity Institute’s Continuity and Resilience Consultant of the Americas, becoming the first person to be honored with this award twice.  Links: Twitter Linkedin

Episode Summary: This week, we explore a simple option for those who aren't quite ready for business continuity software. We talk with Chris Rivera, a Evernote Certified Consultant and former BC practioner, who believes there are some unique characteristics to the commonly available productivity app that can be harnessed by the BC program leaders who are trying to find a way to make their manual processes of planning a bit more efficient. On the episode, we talk about the common features many look for in BC software, Evernote's capabilities and some ways you can immediately use its functionality to address a program's needs. Guest Bio: Christopher Rivera wears several hats, including being an Evernote Certified Consultant, a proud husband, proud father of two amazing kids, and currently works in Big Tech. In his past roles, he has held successful leadership positions for consulting and Fortune 500 companies driving their Crisis Management, Emergency Management, and Business Continuity Programs forward. Links: LinkedIn https://www.theproductiveedge.com/   https://evernote.com/ https://evernote.com/certified-consultants#find-community-member

Episode Summary: This week, we interview a user of the Adaptive Business Continuity (ABC) principles as a follow up to our episodes about ABC's founders a few weeks ago. Because the concepts of ABC are new and many are still interested in learning how it works, I interviewed José M. Garay, a Business Continuity professional with more than 20 years of experience in the financial sector in Peru. Jose has been leading BC programs at Peruvian companies within the pension funds, insurance and banking industries.   Jose has approached the principles of ABC just like many others, with a healthy dose of skepticism, and as you’ll hear from his story, has taken a unique approach to melding the traditional programs with the ABC model.  Guest Bio: With more than 20 years of experience in the financial sector in his country, José M. Garay has a solid understanding of business continuity, disaster recovery and risk management. He has been leading BC programs at important Peruvian companies, such as Prima AFP (pension funds), Rimac Seguros (insurance company) and Interbank (bank). Additionally, he is a teacher at the San Ignacio de Loyola Institute since 1997. Links: Jose Garay- LinkedIn

Episode Summary: This week, Shane interviews Micheal Herrera, founder and CEO of MHA Consulting and BCMMetrics, who recently wrote an article titled- "Sidelined: The Strange Fate of BCM During the COVID Pandemic.” His article observes what many witnessed- that many BCM professionals were either not the primary leader in a Pandemic response for their organization, or one of the first let go during furloughs caused by cost cutting. We discuss Michael's observations about why this may have happened and if this can be remedied.  Guest Bio: Michael Herrera is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BCMMETRICS and its sister company, MHA Consulting. In his role, Michael provides global leadership to the entire set of industry practices and horizontal capabilities within MHA. Under his leadership, MHA has become a leading provider of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery services to organizations on a global level. He is also the founder of BCMMETRICS, a leading cloud based tool designed to assess business continuity compliance and residual risk. Michael is a well-known and sought after speaker on Business Continuity issues at local and national contingency planner chapter meetings and conferences. Prior to founding MHA, he was a Regional VP for Bank of America, where he was responsible for Business Continuity across the southwest region. Links: www.mha-it.com www.bcmmetrics.com Michael Herrera- Linkedin Sidelined: The Strange Fate of BCM During the COVID Pandemic

Episode Summary: This week, Shane interviews James Mitchell- the Director of Organizational Resilience at the 724-bed Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, TX. His responsibilities encompass Emergency Management, Business Continuity and Enterprise Risk.  The last few months he has been heavily involved with a historic pandemic response at Texas Children’s which involved a 140+ day activation of their incident command system. And he graciously sat down with me so we could talk about how he approaches his program, the unique challenges healthcare presents to business continuity, and how he ensures his executive team is always aware and engaged.    Key Points: 0:28min- James’ background 3:06min- How he got into healthcare Business Continuity 6:16min- Why this particular hospital started their program 8:00min- Overview of the program he’s created 10:43min- Approaching the BIA development through the lens of what's important during normal times vs hurricane events 12:22min- The approach he takes to building BC plans in a healthcare 15:30min- Using what he describes as an “internal consulting” model to BC  17:20min- How to you keep plans fresh when time amongst staff is hard to get 19:07min- How the team approaches the testing of their plans 20:03min- Engaging leadership; How the structure of the program helps 21:45min- Participation increases due to a large scale hurricane exercise 22:47min- Is he lucky? Or is the secret sauce quality instead of quantity when executives are involved. 26:28min- The role of his BC program in non-traditional activities like COVID 31:10min- How did the BC planning actually get used during COVID 34:12min- Dealing with Hurricanes and COVID at the same time 37:00min- Tools James has implemented to help his program (Mass Notification, etc.)   Guest Bio: James Mitchell has served at Texas Children’s Hospital for nearly five years and is the Director of Organizational Resilience. His responsibilities encompass Emergency Management, Business Continuity and Enterprise Risk.  The last few months he has been heavily involved with a historic pandemic response at Texas Children’s which involved a 140+ day activation of their incident command system as well as a large scale response to some of the worst regional flooding ever to occur in the United States caused by Hurricane Harvey. Prior to 2020, he led his team and organization in increasingly complex and more realistic exercises culminating in the development and execution of a series of large scale, multi-agency active shooter and mass casualty exercises that can be seen in the videos linked below. Prior to Texas Children’s, James held roles at global companies such as BP (energy) and Invesco (investments) focused on development and integration of new teams and processes with responsibility for IT Disaster Recovery, Crisis Management and Business Continuity. He loves the work he does and greatly respects all of those just starting out in this profession as well as those who have made it to the end and have such remarkable knowledge and insight to share.   Links: LinkedIn  Email Some exercises which James and the team developed: Woodlands Active Shooter & Mass Casualty Exercise (March 2017) DeBakey & Texas Children’s Active Shooter & Mass Casualty Exercise (October 2016)

Episode Summary: Shane continues a series of interviews with business & operational leaders who had no previous business continuity experience and were thrust into launching a recovery strategy in not-so-ideal circumstances. Sheeba Philip is the CEO for Akola (Akola.co)  a globally-inspired jewelry brand on a mission to empower women in need in Eastern Africa. With both manufacturing operations in Uganda, Africa, and retail and operational activities in Texas, Sheeba has to shift immediately into business continuity mode without any formal training or plan. Listen as she describes all the issues she had to deal with, from dealing with business finances, to employee safety and shifting priorities all during a global pandemic.       Key Points: 2:09min- Intro to our guest - Sheeba CEO of Akola 3:03min- What does Akola mean what they do 6:40min- When she and Akola begin to feel the impacts of the pandemic 9:33min- There was no plan! 11:42min- The first actions around personal and worker safety, include a communication cadance 16:15min- Adapting the manufacturing business in a foreign company 17:22min- Changing the product focus to accommodate the times 20:00min- Changes she'd make in the future to be better prepared       Guest Bio: Sheeba Philip is a management & marketing executive with deep global brand building experience across consumer, retail, and non-profit sectors with over ten years in brand and general management positions, with full P&L responsibility, at Mondelēz International and Kraft Foods & JCPenney. She also spearheaded the brand redesign for International Justice Mission, the largest anti-slavery organization in the world.  Sheeba is currently serving as CEO of Akola, a pioneering retail/social enterprise startup on a mission to be a women's lifestyle brand that empowers women in need in Eastern Africa. Akola has been named as one of the 25 brands shaping the future of retail by the National Retail Federation.   Links: akola.co  (Company Website) linkedin.com/in/sheebaphilip      

Episode Summary: Shane starts a series of interviews with business & operational leaders who had no previous business continuity experience and were thrust into launching a work from home strategy in not-so-ideal circumstances. Anitha Abraham is a leader of a Medical Center business unit with tasks that were entirely office based. Listen as she describes the actions she had to take (without any BC planning) to get her team working from home and continuing her vital tasks.   This story highlights the importance of having a resource with operational understanding assigned to help with crafting a BC strategy and that many people do not have automatically have the technology or a work process that will work from home!   Key Points 1:49min- Anitha's job and the role of her team 4:10min- When she first started to feel the impacts of the pandemic 6:13min- How much time she had to develop a work from home strategy 8:29min- Interlude- Shane's thoughts on Anitha's situation from the BC Manager perspective 9:41min- Impacts of shifting to WFH 12:10min- How she began to develop her WFH processes 14:30min- Developing the IT and process cheat sheet for her team 16:45min- Dealing with transfer of work product between team members during the lock down 18:45min- Changes to technology or equipment necessary for this change 20:48min- Lessons learned and the need to plan earlier 22:19min- Impacts to productivity because of the change to the process 25:40min- Shane's lessons learned from this situation.   Guest Bio: Anitha Abraham began her career as a Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse.  After 5 years, she joined the Ob/Gyn research team at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX where she now serves as the supervisor.   Links: Linkedin Personal Website Instagram