There’s a New Sheriff in Town – The Chief Resilience Officer
The evidence is mounting. Anecdotal and research evidence has already noted the rise of the chief resilience officer, and now a new BCI white paper goes into even more depth.
The BCI Continuity and Resilience Report 2025[1] noted that an increasing number of organizations have a dedicated person for managing resilience efforts. Why? Because this is often seen as a way to strengthen alignment between strategic leadership and operational execution.
In 2025 BCI reported that 45.4 % of organizations have a dedicated person responsible for overseeing the running of a resilience programme who reports directly to the board. In demonstration of the growing strategic importance of resilience, approximately 60% of organizations with such a role have established it within the past five years. This also reflects the continuing growth in having a lead employee for the area.
After BCI World 2025, BCI Fellow Chris Oliver, who was part of the panel ‘From Chaos to Clarity, Crisis Leadership in an Uncertain World’ commented: ‘I was talking about the difficulties that people have in a diverse environment today of corralling things together… we are seeing the rise of the chief resilience officer.’ [2]
A deeper dive
The new BCI white paper ‘The Making of the Chief Resilience Officer’ draws attention to the more formalised approach to resilience brought about by the increasing of standards and regulations. This calls for centralised leadership, and that has extended into the corporate domain. ‘While resilience activities often remain distributed across functions such as business continuity, operational risk, and cyber security, growing regulatory and systemic pressures are driving calls for clearer executive ownership,’ it comments.
The paper discusses the origins of the chief resilience officer idea, its evolution, its introduction into the corporate world, and how the role interacts with other C suite activities and personnel. Importantly, it also looks at the skills-sets required in the role, including the soft skills and leadership angles.
The BCI Vision 2030[3] report noted that almost three-quarters of respondents expect to see future organizations having a Chief Resilience Officer in place. The main requirements would be for this role to offer clear strategic and operational leadership, a direct route to the full C-suite, board-level representation, and a voice in financing and resource decisions.
A Chief Resilience Officer fills these requirements. In addition to leadership, the CRO would also design and manage an integrated framework, assess the critical business services and impact tolerances, embed resilience into the organizational culture, and engage with external parties
Of course, the title does not make the job. Some may argue that what is paramount is to have senior sponsorship for resilience, regardless of whether the designated person carries the CRO title, but the breadth of this role and its importance demand a specific role.
Download the White Paper
