Ellis Brover is the former CIO of Toyota Australia and an Independent Board and Executive IT Advisor. He has a proven track record over three decades of building and leading world-class IT organisations and his experience spans a range of roles and industries, from startups to multi-nationals. In this episode of Crisis Talks, we talk about the changing IT landscape over the past few decades, the nature of cyber threats and how they have evolved, and the importance building trust in your crisis teams when preparing for the worst case. We delve into one of his experiences as the CIO of a globall ..read more

“Data should be treated as a liability - not an asset” - Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus With recent high profile cyber attacks targeting Medibank and Optus, Australian boards are scrambling  to understand the risks a cyber attack may present to them and what they can do to prevent, prepare and respond. In this episode of Crisis Talks, I speak with Claire Pales and Anna Liebel, Co- directors of The Secure Board, and co authors of the book with the same title.   They share their insights into how a board’s understanding of risk management can be applied to cyber risks and how boar ..read more

“Don't look at these events as black swans… I don't think any business should plan around what if, every business should plan on when.”    Thomas Knudsen  Thomas Knudsen is the Managing Director of global supply chain business Toll. Having previously lived through the global cyber attack at Maersk, he joined the business as the head of their Global Forwarding Division before being appointed Managing Director in January 2020. At this time, Australia was emerging from the disruptions of the Black Saturday Fires however further serious challenges were ahead. Toll was shortly t ..read more

From a career as a journalist working as a police reporter covering some of the worst crimes in Victoria’s history to the Executive General Manager Corporate Affairs, Government and Communications at the Australian Football League, Brian Walsh has had an amazing career in issues and crisis management. In this interview on Crisis Talks, we talk about his formative years as a journalist and how the “high emotion” of dealing with people on their worst day helped prepare him for his role in a highly emotive and high profile industry he works in now.  Brian discusses the importance of empathy ..read more

Charlton Clark embodies the saying, "Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics."   Imagine having to plan and prepare for an operation that is 2 years away? How would you select the right people and the equipment needed for the task two years before that task is required and ensure that they are all in position and capable to perform that task on that given day?  In this episode of Crisis Talks, I interview Charlton Clark, the General Manager Antarctic Operations and Safety at the Australian Antarctic Division. We talk through some of the extreme planning conside ..read more

11 Years on from the Anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon Crisis, we pick up from the moment the Crisis team observes the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig sinking in the Gulf of Mexico and the subsequent environmental disaster that ensued. In this episode, we talk through the shift in the response objective from People to the Environment and the realisation that Clint and others felt when confronted by the enormity of the environmental catastrophe. Importantly, we also explored the indelible impact that this disaster had on Clint and his colleagues and the juxtaposition of their desire to respond pro ..read more

On the 20th April 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, injured 17 more and resulted in the largest marine OilSpill in history.    Clint Honeycutt was one of the BP Health and Safety Advisors at the time and was activated as a part of the Company Incident Management Team to respond to the incident.   In this multi part series, we discuss his experience working through the immediate response as a part of the incident management team. We discuss the following:  Oil and Gas Emergency Preparedness Arrangements Lessons lear ..read more

From a 15 year old volunteer firefighter in Duffy’s Forest Fire Brigade in 1985 to leading 70,000 firefighters during the response to the 2019-2020 fires, Shane Fitzsimmons rise to being the most trusted face in the bushfire crisis has been a story of resilience, hardship and humility. From losing his father in a routine back-burning operation to overseeing the fire season which claimed the lives of community, volunteer and international firefighting professionals, the qualities that stood out to all of us was his calmness, empathy and authenticity.  In this episode of Crisis Talks we tal ..read more

With thousands of Australians still stranded overseas due to the pandemic, I thought it was important to share the story of one man’s success despite another stunning failure of Australian Bureaucracy.  Shocked by a sudden and harsh lockdown in India in the early days of the pandemic, thousands of Australians turned to their High Commission and Foreign Affairs teams for advice on what to do, only to be told that there was no plan to help get them home. Enter Sanskrit student and English Teacher Simon Quinn, who wouldn't take no for an answer and set about coordinating his own repatriation ..read more

“The leaders who can lead from a place of compassion and empathy and really understand that we are all suffering, then I think they’ll achieve great things.”   Interested in an expert’s perspective on the US’ response to the pandemic? Regina Phelps is an internationally recognised expert in the field of crisis management, continuity planning and exercise design. She is the founder of EMS Solutions Inc, (EMSS) and since 1982, EMSS has provided consultation and speaking services to clients in four continents. During this episode we compare the US’ pandemic response with Australia’s; we ..read more