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  • Episode Summary:

    Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. Today on the podcast, we’re talking with James MacDonnell - Director, Crisis Management and Business Continuity at BDO USA. James is a risk management, business continuity, and crisis management professional with more than 18 years of experience helping Fortune 100 clients and federal agencies prepare for and respond to crises and emerging risks. But what he’s especially good at is developing ways to gamify business continuity activities. You’re going to want to hear how it works and the benefits it has brought to many programs. And you’ll even get to hear my experience of gamifying my BIA collection.

    Guest Bio:

    James MacDonnell is a risk management, business continuity, and crisis management professional with more than 18 years of experience helping Fortune 100 clients and federal agencies prepare for and respond to crises and emerging risks. He has designed enterprise risk management, business continuity and crisis management programs involving diverse stakeholders in support of commercial, national security and military clients. James has experience providing crisis response support during real world events across multiple threat vectors including product recall, extortion events, workplace violence, cyber-attacks, natural disasters and corporate misconduct events. He is frequently sought as a guest speaker at conferences and guest lecturer for top tier universities.

    James has served clients globally across nearly all industry types including manufacturing and distribution, financial services, energy and utilities, medical research and pharmaceuticals, professional sports leagues, non-profit, consumer products, government, higher education and hospitality. He has worked extensively on enhancing the public private partnerships, including several years supporting multiple programs within the Department of Homeland Security.

    Guest Links:

    [email protected]

    Linkedin

    BDO.com

  • Episode Summary:

    Industry Groups are an essential part of any profession. They allow practitioners and thought leaders to share knowledge and generate ideas with their colleagues in a collaborative setting. However, a new generation is making up an increasingly large percentage of the workforce — one that brings with it new priorities and ideas that don’t necessarily fit the mold of current formats.

    This week on the podcast, we’re going to explore the impact that the next generation of professionals are having on the business continuity industry.

    And we're going to understand the key differences between the Boomers and Millennials, how millennials deal with information, and options that industry groups could employ to increase participation and value to this next generation of business continuity professionals.

    Guest Bios:

    Grace Burley

    Grace has nearly two decades of experience in the crisis management industry. She has managed comprehensive planning, training, and exercise programs for companies and organizations in various industries and has received her business continuity certification from Business Continuity Institute (BCI).

    Her strength is developing customized preparedness programs that effectively integrate:

    Crisis ManagementBusiness ContinuityEmergency ManagementCrisis CommunicationsHuman Impact/People Support/Workplace ViolenceIT Disaster Recovery

    Joel Navarro

    Joel has been working in business continuity management since the early 2000. He's an experienced business continuity executive with proven success in managing global resiliency programs. He is certified with DRII as a CBCP and with BCI as an MBCI. As an accomplished leader, he has recruited and managed teams of business continuity professionals to develop and manage resiliency programs for regional to global sized organizations with industry experience in Banking, Mortgage Lending, Insurance, Product Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Direct Sales.

    He is a long-time member of the Association of Continuity Professionals and held positions both as Programs Director and Membership Director. He is currently the Membership Director for the North Texas chapter of the ACP. He is also a contributing member of the National ACP Membership Engagement Committee.

    Joel is often a speaker providing his insights to business continuity at the ACP North Texas chapter. He has presented several times at the Continuity Insights Management Conferences and Webinar Series.

    Links:

    Grace Burley- Linkedin

    Witt O'Brien Consulting

    Joel Navarro- Linkedin

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  • Episode Summary:

    Participation in industry association’s governing boards, oversight committees, mentoring, and consulting groups, can have considerable influence on the development and direction of your profession.

    In this episode of the podcast, we’re talking with Michael Crooymans, the Global Resilience Officer for Signify (previously known as Philips Lighting). His current focus is establishing and implementing the Global Resilience program which focuses on improving the maturity of Business Continuity and crisis/major incident management in the organization. However, he’s also well known for his considerable efforts in building the business continuity professional practices through his volunteering. We will get to hear how he's applied that work into his professional life.

    Guest Bio:

    Michael is the Global Resilience Officer for Signify (previously known as Philips Lighting). His current focus is establishing and implementing the Global Resilience program which focuses on improving the maturity of Business Continuity and improving the crisis/major incident management capability. Collaboration with other disciplines is essential in achieving this. Michael was also a member of the Board of the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) and leads the BCI Netherlands Chapter. As a BCM and Crisis Management (CM) subject matter expert at ISO he has worked on many BCM and CM (related) standards. Prior to joining Signify he was an ICT and Business continuity consultant for over 14 years.

    Links:

    Linkedin

  • Episode Summary:

    In this 2 part series on the podcast, we are going to hear from both the Crisis Manager directly liaising with the government, and also the person who experienced it directly. Both of these individuals were exposed to the same crisis, a kidnapping event, but from two very different perspectives. One having to deal with it from outside, the other one from inside.

    Cyril Moulin Fournier went through the ordeal of being held hostage and experienced a great deal of stress and absolute uncertainty, while the Crisis Manager had to navigate unprecedented circumstances. In both of these perspectives, they learned lessons about personal and professional crisis response that are incredibly insightful.

    Guest Bio:

    Cyril Moulin Fournier is a facilitator, consultant in management of change, keynote speaker and author.He has been working in operations and project management role for many industries (food, information and technologies) across EMEA.

    In 2013, he got through an extreme life changing experience (seized by Boko Haram during 2 months in Northern Nigeria).

    Since then, he has decided to accompany organizations navigate through uncertainty using the unique lessons he learnt from his personal experience. His clients are coming a big spectrum of industries: healthcare, food, international organizations

    Guest Links:

    https://www.connect-create.net

    Email

  • Episode Summary

    So this week on the podcast we’re holding the first of hopefully several round table discussions with some well known voices within business continuity. Today's conversation explores how COVID has changed many BC professional’s worldviews as inspired many to question how the industry will need to address various parts of the profession as we move forward.

    Guest Bios:

    Dr. David Lindstedt is a speaker, author, and champion for business continuity. Along with Mark Armour he founded AdaptiveBCP.org and authored Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach. He is the founder of Adaptive BC Solutions (AdaptiveBCS.com) and creator of three BC software systems. He consults, teaches, and advises on project management and business continuity.

    Mark Armour is a business continuity leader with over 17 years of experience in the field. In that time, Mark has lead several global BC programs and has been directly involved in the response and recovery of well over a hundred separate operational disruptions, none of which were his fault. Mark is the author, along with David Lindstedt, PhD, of the Adaptive Business Continuity Manifesto and Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach. He is currently the Global Director of Business Continuity at Brink’s, Incorporated, the worldwide leader in cash management solutions and secure logistics.

    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:

    David LindstedtTwitterLinkedinMark ArmourTwitterLinkedinJames GreenTwitterLinkedin
  • Episode Summary:

    This week on the podcast, we’re going to speak with a practitioner who faced the challenge of needing a BIA tool. But when she saw that a BC software wasn’t in the cards, she created her own! We’re speaking with Michelle Marx, who is the Resilience and Business Continuity Manager at Transport for London.

    Michelle’s recently unveiled her latest version of her homegrown BIA tool, which is powered by Microsoft’s Power Apps - an off-the-shelf tool many companies use to create homegrown applications for their teams. We get to understand her development process and see if this is something others may wish to explore further for their own programs.

    Guest Bio:

    Michelle is an experienced resilience professional who specializes in business continuity, major incident management, policy development, and strategy. She is currently the Resilience and Business Continuity Lead at Transport for London and has worked in the NHS, London Olympic Games Organization Committee (LOCOG) and in flood consultancy. She has an undergraduate degree in Emergency and Disaster Management from Coventry University and is also undertaking a Masters part time in Security and Resilience at Imperial College London.

    Links:

    M Marx Linkedin Profile

    Business Impact Analysis Walk-through of a Microsoft 365 Based System (Youtube)

    Scorecard Example (Linkedin Article)

    How We Did It - Creating a Business Impact Analysis System on SharePoint (Linkedin Article)

  • Episode Summary:

    We're returning to one more old episode because of the HUGE interest it generated. On this week's show, Shane interviews John Hill, a seasoned consultant with over 20 years of experience in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. John has found a great way to address the consistent appearance of process issues when preparing organizations for regulatory examinations. John integrated the concept of continuous improvement concepts into his BC programs and has lots of stories about how this work has enabled him to create value with leadership. John demonstrates that by using the information he gathered during a BIA or plan development, he was able to improve the efficiency of his organization’s business processes with big results.

    Guest Bio:

    John is a proven resiliency expert with 20+ years of technical experience developing, leading and maturing enterprise Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Crisis Management, Incident Management, and Cyber Security Response for Fortune 500 companies. John is known for implementing redundant technical infrastructure/systems/staff to ensure resilient systems against business interruptions and actual disasters. What sets John apart is his ability to clarify complex technical concepts and partner with IT to build actionable plans for proven recovery capabilities and long-term business sustainability. John is ITIL certified and a Certified Business Continuity Professional.

    Important Links:

    Linkedin

    The W. Edwards Deming Institute- The Red Bead Experiment is good for BCDR professionals because it shows the importance of knowing how the system handicaps employees and kills efficiency. It also shows the importance of employees knowing what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how it affects the overall business and operations.

    The experiment is also really good for open minded management to see how the system they put in place can make or break their company and operations

  • Episode Summary

    We're revisiting the episode that started it all! It remains our number 1 downloaded episode because it contains SO many tips on creating BCM engagement, its worth a re-listen.

    We talk with Scott Baldwin, a BCM program leader who has started several programs in Silicon Valley (Netflix, Ebay, Charles Schwab, Symantec) in his career. Scott has found some unique way to keep things fresh. We’re learn more about his approach to not only starting a program, but how he keeps the organization engaged through simple things like a decentralized BCM certification program.

    In this episode you can hear more about how Scott developed the tools that he successfully used over and over again in various Silicon Valley programs he started or grew. Some of our conversation includes:

    How he uses an object-oriented approach to make things repeatable.How he ensures departments are responsible for their planning efforts- not just him!A simple but effective way to increase engagement through a certification program.

    Guest Bio:

    Scott Baldwin is a passionate Risk & Resiliency leader. Creator of the Engaged Matrix Model of Organizational Resilience (EMM). Specialization in creating truly sustainable Organizational Resilience programs for global, multi-billion dollar companies and integrating Cyber Resilience and other operational risk areas with BCM.

    Important Links:

    LinkedinTwitter
  • Episode Summary:

    This week, we ask the question: "During COVID-19, which books would be valuable to discover, or rediscover, to help my professional career?" So we talk with Eric Anez, the Global Head of Business Resilience at Finastra, a financial technology company based in London. Quarterly, Erick has been releasing his recommendations for books that he’s read that has influenced his journey as a professional and a BC leader. So I asked him to join our show and share his recommendations for the top 10 books he’d recommend to our BC practitioners and listeners hoping to improve their professional journey.

    The Top 10 Books to Discovery (Click the links to find a short preview and to learn more about the book)

    The Tipping Point – Malcom Gladwell Talking to Strangers – Malcom Gladwell Originals – Adam Grant Creating Magic – Lee Cockerell Pre-Accident Investigations- Todd Conklin The Only Plane in the Sky – Garrett Graff Indistractable- Nir Eyal Range- David Epstein The Ride of a Lifetime- Bob Iger How Change Happens – Cass Sunstein

    Guest Bio:

    Erick Anez is the Global Head of Business Resilience at Finastra. Erick is a proven leader with well over a decade of experience leading change and transformation in the Operational Resilience field.

    His hands-on approach focuses on operational learning, culture, and reputational management. Erick holds a Bachelor of Emergency & Homeland Security, Graduate studies in Security and Disaster Management, is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), Certified Risk Management Professional (CRMP), graduate of the FEMA institute in Incident Management and Command, and is a respected member of Public-Private partnerships within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

    Some of his most notable achievements in the field include leading the private sector response to Hurricane Maria as well as working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in Continuity of Operations (CCOP) projects for mission-critical facilities in the United States. Erick has also trained with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Infectious Disease Planning and community response, including Point of Dispensing initiatives.

    From 2016 to 2019, Erick held several roles at Crowley and, most recently, was the company’s Managing Director of Safety & Resilience. During this time, he was responsible for resilience operations supporting all business segments as well as leading the organization’s safety culture improvement journey. At Crowley, he led the Occupational Health & Safety, Business Continuity, and Crisis Management teams.

    Links:

    LinkedIn

    The Crisis Ready Institute

  • Episode Summary:

    For young professionals in the business continuity field, developing a personal brand might sound challenging. So on this week’s episode, we’re going to talk with someone who developed a personal brand within our field and explore just how they did it.

    This week, we talk with Luke Bird, FBCI CRISC. Since his career began, he developed his personal brand within Business Continuity by writing and networking with many other international professionals. His writing led to becoming a self published author of "BlueyedBC – Business Continuity for Junior Professionals" and most recently, becoming elected as a Director to the Business Continuity Institute’s Global Board.

    Guest Bio:

    Luke Bird is an award winning business continuity and disaster recovery specialist working in global financial services.

    Links:

    Luke Bird Linkedin

    Amazon- BlueyedBC – Business Continuity for Junior Professionals

  • 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:

    TwitterLinkedin
  • 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:

    LinkedinPersonal WebsiteInstagram