12:45 PM > KEYNOTE: From Risk Registers to Real Readiness: Building Crisis Leadership that Works Under Pressure
What distinguishes organisations that respond well when a real crisis hits - the kind that’s fast, messy and deeply public? This year’s events have served as reminders of the fragility of established, highly trusted organisations – from international airports to national retailers – to major disruption. System failures and their handling can hinder the ability to continue operations and undermine trust of stakeholders including customers, employees, suppliers, governments and regulators, leading to financial losses, public scrutiny and a decline in brand reputation in a matter of days. Crisis doesn’t arrive neatly - it disrupts leadership, exposes assumptions, and accelerates organisational risk. The businesses that respond best are those that have trained for the real thing, and can respond in the moment, dynamically, not just written plans for if they may need to do so. Andy and Claire will show that real resilience is a capability that can be taught, drilled and deployed. They will present an approach that draws on decision-making models developed in high-risk environments (incl. military, emergency services, aviation), which are designed to force clarity,
coordination and accountability under pressure, providing leaders with a logic for action when information is incomplete, time is limited, and consequences are long-
term.
This session will explore:
- How risk boards and senior leaders become underprepared for the speed of required decision-making in high-profile crises - the predictable failure modes and what to fix first.
- How corporate leaders can adopt models used by high-risk environments - incident command translated for the board.
- How teams can be trained - build muscle memory for crisis response.
- How systems are tested and strengthened - crisis audits, realistic war-gaming, playbooks, regulator and stakeholder interface testing, and capability metrics to track progress.
- Analysis of real-life examples against effective crisis response models
Keynote Speakers