Articles
Introduction
All BCI Chapters are led by an elected voluntary board. The current USA Chapter Board is as follows:
President: Douglas Weldon, FBCI
Doug Weldon is Vice President, Product & Infrastructure Risk Management with Thomson Reuters (New York, NY). Doug earned a Master’s Degree in Computer Science, and his more than 25-year career includes an extensive background in IT, process quality management, business development, program/project management, and senior leadership added to expert level achievements in the disciplines of Incident/Crisis Management, Business Continuity Management (BCM), Disaster Recovery (DR), Physical/Information Security Management and Operational Risk/Resiliency Management.
At AT&T, Doug developed and managed the largest BC/DR program in the world including recovery operations for AT&T’s global network and internal business and IT operations.
At Telcordia Technologies and subsequently as President and Managing Consultant at Vigilant Services Group, Doug led many additional resiliency projects for technology, healthcare, financial services, telecommunications, logistics, entertainment/sports, manufacturing, and government customers.
At Thomson Reuters, he has developed and is managing an operational risk management program to cost-effectively increase the resiliency (business continuity/disaster recovery, security, and operational effectiveness) of its products, customer-facing services, and supporting infrastructures.
Doug holds the FBCI (Fellow) certification from the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), has been awarded a U.S. Patent in remote electronic vaulting, holds the Business Resilience Auditor and Business Resilience Manager certifications from the Business Resilience Certification Consortium International (BRCCI), and was elected to the CPM (Contingency Planning and Management) Hall of Fame in 2010. Doug is also currently serving as President and Executive Board Member for the BCI-USA Chapter, and previously served as Advisory Board Member for CPM and the Thomson Reuters representative to the committee developing the ANSI Standard for Business Continuity Management. He is also an instructor for the BCI’s BCM Audit and Plan Writing courses.
Vice President: Frank Leonetti, MBCI, CBCP
Frank Leonetti, MBCI, CBCP, is the CEO and Managing Partner for NorthStar Advisory Services, LLC. He was formerly the Manager for Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery of Oracle’s Professional Services. He had been with Oracle/Sun/StorageTek for the past 9 years and has been in the overall IT business for the past 22 years. He is a certified business continuity professional through the Business Continuity Institute and the Disaster Recovery Institute. He has worked on hundreds of engagements for both public and private sector companies in the areas of DR planning, testing, merger and acquisition planning, continuity of operations and compliance validation.
Frank has been a featured and keynote speaker at several national conferences including: DRJ, DRIE, CPM, CIO Forum, InfoWorld, Marcus Evans BC/Security Conference, Continuity Insights, BrightTalk Webinars, MIT Professional Education instructor and several ACP and BCI events. Mr. Leonetti is the Corporate Board CFO/Treasurer of the Association of Contingency Planners, Board Vice-President of the US Chapter of the Business Continuity Institute, Advisory Board Member of the Disaster Resource Guide, Advisory Board Member of Contingency Planning Management and the Co-Chair of the CCC Foundation Board. Frank has published several articles for CIO Magazine, Continuity Insights, BC Management and written and published several industry white pap
Treasurer: Eric Staffin, FBCI, CISSP
Eric Staffin, Vice President, Investors Migrations - Americas, Thomson Reuters, received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and his Master’s Degree in Business Administration in Finance and Corporate Strategy from New York University’s Stern School of Business. Eric is currently responsible for heading up the Investor segment’s platform simplification and migration functions for the Americas in support of the business’ overall client retention and product alignment strategies. Eric was previously responsible for the oversight, management and execution of operational risk, business resiliency, and performance and service level management initiatives globally across Thomson Reuters’ Investment & Advisory business. Prior to joining Thomson Reuters (formerly Thomson Financial) in 2003, Eric held senior management roles at Citigroup, where he was Vice President and Business Head of Citigroup’s Internet Tools and Services Group, and Bankers Trust, where he served as Principal and Director of Bankers Trust’s Global Institutional Services Internet Management Group.
Eric holds the FBCI (Fellow) certification from the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) and the CISSP certification from (ISC)2. Eric is currently serving as an Executive Board Member (Treasurer) for the BCI-USA Chapter and a Founding Member of the Scarsdale Schools Education Foundation.
Eric is a sought-after speaker and trainer, and has served as an individual conference speaker, moderator and panelist for ISACA, the BCI and ISC2 on subjects including Operational Risk Management, Crisis and Incident Management, Risk Management Governance, Supply Chain Resilience, Performance Management, Data Privacy and other regulatory issues.
Secretary: Paul Kirvan, FBCI, CISA
Paul Kirvan is an independent business continuity consultant, IT auditor, technical writer and educator with over 25 years experience in business continuity, disaster recovery, enterprise risk management, telecommunications and IT auditing. Mr. Kirvan is currently a member of the Business Continuity Institute's Global Membership Council and founding board member and secretary of the BCI’s USA Chapter. He was previously a member of the international board of the BCI. Mr. Kirvan is a Fellow of the BCI and a Certified Information Systems Auditor.
Board Member: Ted Brown, MBCI, CBCP, CBCV
Ted Brown, MBCI, CBCP, CBCV is President & CEO of KETCHConsulting and a well-known business continuity industry leader. With 40 years in technology, Brown has contributed 20 years to the business continuity industry. At various times, he has lent his expertise to the sales, consulting, and service delivery aspects of the industry. He has led the development of hundreds of unique BCP plans and actual recoveries. As a Certified Business Continuity Professional, Brown has shared his experience and expertise through published articles and lectures to thousands of business continuity and disaster recovery professionals. His lectures have been featured at CPM, CI, DRJ,CA World, EPICC, DVDRIEG, MADRA, Summit, BOMA, COMMON, DPMA, Survive, DRIE, CPE, ACP, NEDRIX, and 7×24 in North America, plus Australia and Malaysia
From the beginnng, Ted Brown has been a leading proponent of work group recovery, voice recovery, electronic vaulting, and non-IT business continuity. He has personally influenced many facets of the business continuity process including evaluating alternatives, implementing those alternatives, and ground zero recoveries. He also offered a great deal of time and personal assistance during the long effort to reconstruct the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Marilyn.
Uniquely qualified in the development of hot site solutions, Brown developed and delivered an internationally acclaimed white paper and presentation titled “How to Negotiate a Hot Site,” benefitting thousands of organizations. Subsequently Brown presented it to a special gathering of business continuity professionals including representatives from IBM, Schlumberger, and SunGard. Additionally, he has developed a module for selling business continuity to upper management.
In November of 2007, KETCH Consulting was inducted into the Contingency Planning & Management Hall of Fame. In 2002, Ted as an individual was elected to the Contingency Planning & Management Hall of Fame along with Rudy Giuliani. The Hall of Fame recognizes leading contributors to Business Continuity.
Several years ago, Mr. Brown formed a BCP Consulting firm: KETCHConsulting. KETCHConsulting is unique in that they execute BCP consulting: performing BIA’s, BCP plans, Risk Assessment, Mitigation and BCP Education. But they are unique in that all are certified (CBCP or MBCI) and most KETCH consultants have actual RECOVERY experience. Furthermore, they provide unique offerings like Hot Site Negotiation, long term recovery strategies, table top exercises and Executive selling of BCP.
Brown, a graduate of Penn State, lives in northeastern Pennsylvania and is recognized for his contribution to his community, including the Chamber of Commerce, adult literacy, and special needs services.
Board Member: Kathleen Lucey, FBCI
Kathleen Lucey founded Montague Risk Management in 1996 to provide integrated consulting services on all aspects of threat analysis and management. She previously worked for EMC as a Practice Manager.
Kathleen is an international thought-leader in the business continuity/disaster recovery field, and has published many articles and interviews on a variety of subjects related to BC/DR in UK and US industry journals. She is a sought-after speaker at industry conferences: in the last 10 years, she has given nearly 50 individual conference sessions (in both English and French), and has chaired 5 industry panels on subjects ranging from Title IX (PS-Prep) to Supply Chain Resilience, to HIPAA and other regulatory issues.
She has also received extensive recognition from her peers in the industry:
- 1998: received the inaugural Business Continuity Practitioner of the Year Award, given by IBM to the individual who has made the most significant contribution to innovation in the field that year
- 2000: certified as a Fellow of the Business Continuity Institute (FBCI).
- 2005: inducted into the Contingency Planning and Management Hall of Fame
She is the sole practitioner to date to hold all three of these industry distinctions.
- 2007: elected Chair of the Contingency Planning & Management Advisory Board
- 2008: founding President of the USA Chapter of the Business Continuity Institute
- 2009: elected Member of the Board of Directors of the Business Continuity Institute
Board Member: Margaret Millett, MSBC, MBCI, MBCP
Margaret Millett is a Director at eBay (San Jose, CA) responsible for their Business Continuity Management Program. She has been actively involved in the business continuity field since 1994 and worked for financial services companies in Boston, Massachusetts and Dublin, Ireland. Margaret has held board-level positions with business continuity organizations, written publications and spoken at business continuity management conferences in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
In 2011, Margaret was awarded a Master of Science with honors in Business Continuity from Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. She has been certified as a Member of the Business Continuity Institute (MBCI) and a Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP).
Affiliations include The Business Continuity Institute (BCI), Continuity Insights (CI) Editorial Advisory Board, North East Disaster Recovery Information X-Change (NEDRIX), the Business Recovery Managers Association (BRMA), DRI International and a member of the US Technical Advisory Group to ISO Technical Committee 223.
Board Member: Brian Zawada, MBCI, MBCP
Brian Zawada is the Director of Consulting for Avalution Consulting, a U.S. firm specializing in business continuity and IT disaster recovery consulting and software solutions.
Prior to co-founding Avalution, Brian performed various leadership roles within international consulting firms, and also served as an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Air Force.
Over the past nineteen years, Brian has actively managed internal business continuity programs and consulted with organizations of all sizes and in nearly all industries. Previously, Brian served on the ASIS International Standards Development Technical Committee that authored the American National Standard on business continuity. He was also the President of the Northern Ohio Chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners. In addition to being a frequent author and speaker, Brian currently serves as the Head of Delegation and Chairman of the US Technical Advisory Group to ISO Technical Committee 223 (the committee charged with authoring the new family of ISO Societal Security standards, including ISO 22301 and ISO 22313). He is also an active participant on the Editorial Advisory Board of Continuity Insights magazine. In early 2012, Brian was elected to the board of the USA Chapter of the Business Continuity Institute.
Brian holds a BS from the United States Air Force Academy and a MS from the Joint Military Intelligence College. Brian is certified as a Member of the Business Continuity Institute (MBCI) and is also certified by the Disaster Recovery Institute as a Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP).
