Back to Basics: Responding in the Real World
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Thought Leadership Webinar Series 2026
The Thought Leadership Webinar Series is a new, member-only initiative launching this year that will spotlight independent, diverse voices across the resilience space. Designed with practitioners at the centre, the series will create an open forum for honest, forward-looking conversations about the issues that truly matter to those doing the work.
Back to Basics: Responding in the Real World
Plans are written in calm environments. Real incidents are not.
Information is incomplete. Situations change. Decisions cannot always wait for certainty. People get tired, communication becomes harder, and teams must adapt in real time.
In this practical session, we’ll explore what response really looks and feels like when plans meet reality. Drawing on experience across emergency planning, multi-agency response, crisis management and organisational resilience, we’ll examine the human factors that shape response - from situational awareness and decision-making under pressure to communication, coordination and adaptability.
A back-to-basics look at what really matters when disruption becomes real.
We look forward to welcoming you.
Speakers:
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Maria Florencia Lombardero Garcia
Thought Leadership Manager, The BCI
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Kelly Blakeley MBCI
Founder, Flex Story
Kelly Blakeley is a crisis management and organisational resilience specialist with extensive experience working across sectors and internationally to strengthen preparedness, response and resilience capability.
Her career spans local emergency response and multi-agency coordination through to government and national capability-building programmes, critical infrastructure, executive crisis preparedness and strategic advisory work. She has worked with organisations across the UK, Middle East and internationally, supporting the development of practical capabilities to prepare for and respond to disruption in complex and high-pressure environments.
Kelly is the Founder of Flex Story, a UAE-based consultancy focused on crisis management, business continuity, organisational resilience and leadership capability. She is a twice-elected Global Board Director of the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), a BCI Approved Instructor, and an expert committee member contributing to ISO and BSI work on security and resilience standards. She also serves on the advisory panels of Crisis Response Journal and International Security Journal.
Alongside her practical work, Kelly is a future-focused voice on the evolving resilience landscape, exploring how emerging risks, technology and AI are reshaping preparedness, leadership and crisis capability. Her work connects these future challenges with the enduring human realities of response - helping organisations build the judgement, relationships and adaptability needed when disruption becomes real.
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