James McAlister, FBCI MA DipBCM DipEd FICPEM

Director, Crisis Prepared Limited

James is the Director of Crisis Prepared Limited, a multi award winning organisational resilience consultancy and former police officer. He has over 35 years’ experience in business continuity, civil protection, crisis, major incident & disaster management, emergency planning and counter terrorism.

James is a former Chair of the Business Continuity Institute, Global Membership Council, North West Region Forum and subject matter expert to the UK Association of Chief Police Officers. He is a qualified higher education teacher, assessor, coach, ISO 22301 lead auditor and frequent speaker at international conferences. In 2019, James was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the BCI for his services to the industry.

Charlie Maclean-Bristol, MA (Hons), PgD, FBCI, FEPS

CEO & Head of Training and a founding director , PlanB Consulting and Business Continuity Training Ltd.

Charlie is a Business Continuity professional with over 23 years’ experience, having worked with a number of major UK utilities before establishing the successful business continuity practice, PlanB Consulting, in 2007.

He is also Head of Training and a founding director of Business Continuity Training Ltd. Charlie is a former BCI board member and a fellow of both the Emergency Planning Society (EPS) and the BCI. In 2011, he was awarded Business Continuity Consultant of the year at the CIR awards. In May 2016, Charlie was Highly Commended in the category of Business Continuity Consultant of the Year at the BCI European Awards.

The strategic skills that shaped his practical and accessible approach to BC were developed while serving as a Captain in the British Army, planning and implementing patrols and anti-terrorist operations. He is a regular speaker at conferences, writes a weekly bulletin on BC Training and has appeared a number of times on TV and radio. He has had a number of papers published in BC and emergency planning journals, including being runner-up in the Continuity Central Essay Competition 2013.

Most recently Charlie was awarded Industry Personality of the Year 2018 at the BCI European Awards.

James Royds DMS, MBA, FBCI, FCMI

Independent Consultant: risk, crisis and continuity management

James is an international and experienced risk, crisis and continuity management consultant, with diplomas in Management Studies, Risk and Security Management, and a Master’s degree in Business Administration. He is a fellow of the BCI and Chartered Management Institute (CMI), with specialist membership of the Institute of Risk Management (IRM). He is also a member of the Institute of Directors (IoD). James is motivated by the new and innovative and is a proven strategic and creative lateral thinker.

He is comfortable advising or influencing individuals and organisations at all levels of responsibility about governance risk and compliance (GRC) across the continuity and resilience agenda. He is a regular conference speaker, chair and occasional writer (white papers, journal articles, thought leadership seminars and workshops on BCM).

Kim Maclean-Bristol, MSc, BSc (Hons), MBCI, ISO 22301 Lead Auditor

Founder and co-director , PlanB Consulting

Kim is the founder and co-director of PlanB Consulting since 2007. Her expertise in financial, sales and customer service systems has been fundamental to developing robust BC systems. An expert in office systems and how to ensure their continuity following an incident, former statistician Kim worked as an accountant, financial software developer, IT consultant and sales executive before becoming a certified BC consultant. She is PlanB Consulting’s Lead Consultant and Auditor on ISO22301, having recently completed ICOR’s ANSI Certified ISO 22301 Lead Auditor Course, which she is now qualified to train.

Kim is part of the British Standards Institute’s BCM/1, the BSI Committee responsible for business continuity and which developed the UK’s input for the standard. She was also a member of the committee, which developed BS11200 the new standard for Crisis Management and is now working with others in developing a technical specification for Business Impact Analysis.

Gillian Logie MBCI

Senior Consultant, PlanB Consulting

Gillian has worked with a number of clients to develop and deliver bespoke incident and crisis management plans, training and exercises. She has also conducted gap analysis and facilitated table top exercises to identify improvement opportunities in business continuity arrangements. She enjoys working closely with clients and their industry regulators and stakeholders to develop a holistic management system that allows for an effective response to adverse events. Recent projects include a review of business continuity plans for a distribution company, a crisis management exercise for a private bank and a business continuity gap analysis for a public-sector organisation.

Prior to delivering training for BC Training, Gillian was a Project Manager at a training company in the oil and gas sector. This role involved the development and roll out of incident and crisis management plans, role-specific training for emergency responders and delivery of training and major simulated exercises. She was also a member of an incident management team that responded on behalf of several operators. In this team, she undertook the roles of HR responder and relative response call taker.

Gillian has delivered a range of exercises both in the UK and abroad. These have included a major COMAH exercise for a gas terminal that involved a number of live players including the emergency services, and government-assessed pollution exercises involving multiple teams, regulators and stakeholders participating in several locations. Most recently Gillian was awarded Adviser of the Year 2019 at the CIR Business Continuity Awards.

Werner Verlinden FBCI

Owner , Musena Consulting

Werner has a strong professional level of expertise in the domains of Business Continuity Management, Risk Management, Crisis/Incident Management, Information Security and Resilience. He contributes to the BCI and the BCM profession through participation in industry activities. He is a member of both the BCI Forum Belgium organising committee and the BCI Forum Netherlands organising committee. He is also a member of ISO Technical Committee 223/4, which developed ISO22301 and ISO22313 while representing the Belgian Standardisation Organisation (NBN). Werner participated in the development of the national BCM standard of the United Arab Emirates and has set up of Business Continuity Management Systems within large corporate environments.

Most recently, Werner was awarded Continuity and Resilience Consultant 2016 at the BCI European Awards in Dublin.

Andrew Mason MBCI

Director, Logical Resilience Limited

With nearly 20 years’ experience of working as a business continuity practitioner, Andy spent 12 years as Head of Business Continuity for PwC and was responsible for the internal BC programme for the UK firm’s c35 offices and c23500 staff, contractors and supplier staff.

Andy completely overhauled the firm’s BC programme and in October 2009 the UK firm was certified to BS25999-2:2007, and in 2013 transitioned to ISO22301. Andy worked directly with other parts of the PwC global network, and was instrumental in helping PwC Africa get certified to BS25999 across 9 countries and then transition to ISO22301 and expand to 16 countries, as well as implementing ISO22301 for PwC in the Middle East (12 countries) and PwC Australia, and providing support to other country firms including France, Greece, Cyprus and Gibraltar. Andy implemented plan management and emergency notification systems across c50 country firms across PwC. Andy started in business continuity management at Sainsbury’s following on from a background in IT operations and IT audit, and was responsible for the development of BC plans for the loss of systems, and a roll-out of BC into the Supply Chain, amongst other areas.

Whilst at Sainsbury’s, Andy also had direct experience of handling incidents ranging from the London bombings, store fires, strike action, fuel strike implications, protest activity and IT issues, through to serious product recalls. Andy is a member of the Business Continuity Institute, a serving member (c14 years) of the BSI Committee that developed BS25999 Parts 1 and 2 and ISO22301, and was awarded ‘Business Continuity Manager of the Year’ at the CIR BC Awards 2010. He is also a member of the British Computer Society and holds Chartered IT Professional status, with a degree in Computing.

Neil Wainman MSc MBCI

Director, Diamond Continuity Solutions Ltd

Neil is the Director of Diamond Continuity Solutions Ltd and formerly Senior Specialist - Crisis, Continuity and Security at E.ON UK – a major energy utility where he gained 14 years’ experience in delivering effective risk management and embedding capability in corporate security, continuity and crisis management across operations including warehouse and logistics, customer contact centres, power distribution, generation, business services and field operations. He previously served in lead roles covering Cyber & IT Security Architecture, Information Security, Network/Telecom Operations Centre, IT Audit and telecommunications infrastructure projects. Neil actively supports the Business Continuity Institute as Founder & Leader of the East Midlands Forum, holding Member status and working towards Fellowship.

He was Winner in the BCI European Awards and the Continuity, Insurance and Risk Magazine Awards, 2015, in the category of ‘Most Effective Recovery’. Neil serves on the Advisory Group of the East Midlands Cyber Resilience Centre – dedicated to protecting SME’s so they operate safely and security in our increasingly interconnected world. Neil is certified as an ISO 22301 Internal Auditor and holds an ITIL Foundation certificate. Previous certifications include Information Systems Auditor, IT Security and Corporate Security. He has a Master’s Degree in Computer Network Management from Sheffield Hallam University. To relax, Neil plays the trumpet/cornet and goes hiking and cycling - having cycled over many famous cols seen in 'Le Tour de France'. He volunteers at a social action charity near his home in Nottingham.