Crisis Talks

Ellis Brover is the former CIO of Toyota Australia and an Independent Board and Executive IT Advisor. He has a proven track record over three decades of building and leading world-class IT organisations and his experience spans a range of roles and industries, from startups to multi-nationals. In this episode of Crisis Talks, we talk about the changing IT landscape over the past few decades, the n...

“Data should be treated as a liability - not an asset” - Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus With recent high profile cyber attacks targeting Medibank and Optus, Australian boards are scrambling  to understand the risks a cyber attack may present to them and what they can do to prevent, prepare and respond. In this episode of Crisis Talks, I speak with Claire Pales and Anna Liebel, Co- directors of The...

“Don't look at these events as black swans… I don't think any business should plan around what if, every business should plan on when.”    Thomas Knudsen  Thomas Knudsen is the Managing Director of global supply chain business Toll. Having previously lived through the global cyber attack at Maersk, he joined the business as the head of their Global Forwarding Division before being appointed Managi...

From a career as a journalist working as a police reporter covering some of the worst crimes in Victoria’s history to the Executive General Manager Corporate Affairs, Government and Communications at the Australian Football League, Brian Walsh has had an amazing career in issues and crisis management. In this interview on Crisis Talks, we talk about his formative years as a journalist and how the...

Charlton Clark embodies the saying, "Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics."   Imagine having to plan and prepare for an operation that is 2 years away? How would you select the right people and the equipment needed for the task two years before that task is required and ensure that they are all in position and capable to perform that task on that given day?  In this episode of Cris...

11 Years on from the Anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon Crisis, we pick up from the moment the Crisis team observes the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig sinking in the Gulf of Mexico and the subsequent environmental disaster that ensued. In this episode, we talk through the shift in the response objective from People to the Environment and the realisation that Clint and others felt when confronted by t...

On the 20th April 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, injured 17 more and resulted in the largest marine OilSpill in history.    Clint Honeycutt was one of the BP Health and Safety Advisors at the time and was activated as a part of the Company Incident Management Team to respond to the incident.   In this multi part series, we discuss his e...

From a 15 year old volunteer firefighter in Duffy’s Forest Fire Brigade in 1985 to leading 70,000 firefighters during the response to the 2019-2020 fires, Shane Fitzsimmons rise to being the most trusted face in the bushfire crisis has been a story of resilience, hardship and humility. From losing his father in a routine back-burning operation to overseeing the fire season which claimed the lives...

With thousands of Australians still stranded overseas due to the pandemic, I thought it was important to share the story of one man’s success despite another stunning failure of Australian Bureaucracy.  Shocked by a sudden and harsh lockdown in India in the early days of the pandemic, thousands of Australians turned to their High Commission and Foreign Affairs teams for advice on what to do, only...

“The leaders who can lead from a place of compassion and empathy and really understand that we are all suffering, then I think they’ll achieve great things.”   Interested in an expert’s perspective on the US’ response to the pandemic? Regina Phelps is an internationally recognised expert in the field of crisis management, continuity planning and exercise design. She is the founder of EMS Solutions...

"You can have the greatest resources in the world, but the weights aren't going to lift themselves".  Tarkyn Lockyer is a 227 game champion of the Collingwood Football Club who now heads up the Australian Football League's National Talent Development Program. In this episode of Crisis Talks, we explore some of the highs and lows of his amazing career, from the disappointment of missing the 2010 pr...

Justin Dunlop leads Ambulance Victoria’s response to public crises as the Director of the Emergency Management Unit. In this Episode, we talk about the simple strategic objectives his team has applied to ensure the safety of staff and the continuity of service for Ambulance Victoria during the CoronaVirus Pandemic. His insights are a masterclass in adaptive planning and leadership. Since 2004, Jus...

Tony was appointed Victoria’s first Inspector-General for Emergency Management in July 2014, an independent Governor in Council Statutory Appointment, working closely with emergency management sector partners and the community to strengthen Victoria's emergency management arrangements and enhance community safety. For nearly 40 years he has worked in intelligence, security and emergency/crisis man...

Tim Walmsley is a veteran and the founder and CEO of BenchOn, the world’s first Talent Sharing Platform. Heeding the call for business owners and entrepreneurs to share their ideas to help get us through this Crisis, Tim joins me to discuss how organisations can keep their workforce and share their skills rather than standing them down. We talk about how he came up with the idea for this world-fir...

From the frontlines of the NZ SAS to the frontline of a global pandemic, Anaesthetist Bill Bestic has seen the best and worst of humanity and understands leadership during uncertainty. In this episode of Crisis Talks, Bill gives us a unique insight into the preparations that are underway in our hospitals, the fears of our medical staff and the courage people are showing every day as they prepare f...

After working on crisis management and continuity with corporates and government departments preparing responses to Ebola, Foot and mouth, H1N1 and now COVID-19 Jason Jarrett asks the question “Is the three-second rule dead?” Jason Jarrett is an adjunct professor in risk management, a consultant on risk and resilience and runs a mega Podcast, A Buddhist Podcast. Jason shares some unique perspectiv...

With fires ravaging Australia and questions about the affect of climate change, I sat down with Craig Lapsley, the former Emergency Management Commissioner of Victoria to discuss the lessons learnt from fires in Australia over the past 40 years.  Craig’s work here and overseas, enables a unique perspective on how to best prepare for the fire threat and how we compare with other international respo...

If there’s nothing more Australian than strangers coming together to help others in their time of crisis, then there is no one more Australian than Darren Hodge. Darren has spent over thirty years in the Victoria Ambulance Service, now serving as one of the elite few MICA Flight Paramedics. In this episode of Crisis Talks, we explore some of the cases he wrote about in his book, ‘A Life on the Lin...

“Our currency is empathy”. When social media erupted after the Gold’s bus crash in 2016, we turned to Clare Gleghorn, the CEO of Bastion Reputation Management for support. Clare shares her insights into the impact of social media outrage and how her team measures influence to ensure a balanced response in a crisis; how to manage reputational risk in the digital age; the importance of empathy; and...

@Cyberhacker Podcaster and CEO of CTRLGroup, Bastien Treptel joins us this week to talk about Cyber Security. He describes some of the industrious ways that hackers and nefarious threats are targeting and accessing our data and what we can do to prevent, prepare and respond if a cyber crisis strikes.  

Josh Hawes is the Principal Psychologist and Technical Director of Critical Components. He formerly served as a Clinical Psychologist in the Army with the Australian SAS and specialises in critical incident response and recovery. I have used Josh and his team in support of a number of workplace crises. In this episode we talk about psychological resilience, high performing teams and how to prepare...

I had the honour of serving under Major General Field 20 years ago when we deployed to East Timor. At that time, he was the Operations Officer of our Battalion.  Now, he is the Forces Commander of the Australian Army, in charge of thousands of men and women. We talk about his experiences in different theatres overseas or at home leading the recovery to the 2017 cyclone or the 2011 floods in Queens...

Steve Bell is the Crisis Management and Workplace Health and Safety Partner for Herbert Smith Freehills in Melbourne. Steve’s insights on crisis response challenge the legal archetypes and break down some of the common misperceptions about the primacy of legal response during a crisis. His points about empathy, values and pace when making decisions in the heat of the moment are extremely refreshin...

Cameron Schwab, the youngest ever CEO of an AFL Club shares his leadership insights. He talks candidly about leadership, creativity, crisis and fatherhood. This interview is raw, authentic, insightful and inspiring. 

If necessity is the mother of invention, then a crisis is the perfect time to look at innovative ways to solve complex problems. Human Centred Design Thinking (HCD) is an approach to problem solving that places stakeholders in the centre of the process, and helps organisations shape novel or unique solutions to their problems.   In this breakout session of Crisis Talks, I talk with James Merchant,...