Our general sessions consistently rank high on attendee assessment forms. Our experienced speakers present unbiased, current information that you can implement in your organization immediately to solve problems, increase production and protect company assets. Learn to Balance the Demands of your BC program with these insightful and informative sessions.
Monday
General Session 1
Subconscious Secrets of Business Success
8:15 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.
Anthony Galie, A.G.S.
Practitioners in the industry know what they need to do to reach their goals. Whether its to increase resiliency, gain management support or recover from a crisis, the way forward is clear. But the day-to-day hassles and distractions that inevitably spring up every time can block the obvious paths and methodologies. In this humorous and engaging keynote, Galie explains exactly why goals can be deterred along with scientifically-proven ways to overcome them.
Anthony Galie has been teaching audiences around the world how to get and stay motivated. As an author, speaker, and trained psychotherapist, Galie has studied the secrets of top performers in every field.
General Session 2
Industry Trends and Real World Experiences
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Tony Schmitz, Send Word Now
Join industry experts as they provide a review of real-world experiences and predict trends they are seeing in the industry. Send Word Now customers and industry pundits and prognosticators will join Schmitz in a rollicking discussion on the state of the art in business continuity planning. Plenty of time will be left for direct interaction with the delegates.
Tony Schmitz, CEO of SendWordNow has been an entrepeneur and business executive since 1983, creating and building value for technology companies across the New York region.
General Session 3
Elevating BC/DR to Enterprise Risk Management
10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Jeff Dato, Pinnacle Airlines
Brian Neary Hartford Insurance, Monday
Spencer Schwartz, Atlas Air
Rick Fabrizio, AmeriGas
Developing your firm's BC/DR capabilities and programs requires strong management support. With the demands of global business continuity, the task becomes even more intensive. Find out how you can grab the attention of senior management with solid, comprehensive proposals that get your organization what it needs and keeps the boss happy. Our distinguished panel will share experiences on balancing the demands of your BCP program and answer questions about justifying your BC/DR requests. Questions should be submitted in advance and focus on strategic matters that executives can address. Send to
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.
Jeff Dato is vice president, risk management for Pinnacle Airlines.
Brian Neary is vice president, operational risk at The Hartford and is also the Chief Resiliency Officer for the company
Spencer Schwartz is senior vice president and chief financial officer for Atlas Air Worldwide.
Michael Croy, national BC/DR director at Forsythe, will moderate this session.
Rick Fabrizio is VP, information technology and chief information officer of AmeriGas Partners, L.P. AmeriGas is a national marketer and distributor of propane, propane equipment and related services headquartered in Valley Forge, PA.
Tuesday
General Session 4
A Crisis in Leadership:What You Need to Know BEFORE a Disaster Hits Your Company
8:15 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.
Regina Phelps, EMSS
Leadership during good times can be difficult enough; during a disaster, it can be a matter of life or death for your people, your company, and your shareholders. We will explore recent examples where dubious and uncertain leadership shook public confidence and rattled citizens to their core. Very quickly, you will see there are some very predictable behaviors that begin to emerge. This session explores the five most common failures during an incident and peels back what you can do to avoid these pitfalls. Learn what you can do to improve leadership, minimize the fatigue, and hopefully ensure that, ultimately, better decisions are made.
Regina Phelps, CEM, RN, BSN, MPA is founder of Emergency Management and Safety Solutions.
General Session 5
Community Resilience
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Deke Copenhaver, City of Augusta
John Copenhaver, CMG
As the numbers and magnitudes of catastrophic events continue to escalate year after year, the impacts on communities around the world are growing at an alarming rate. With the response capabilities of governments at all levels – local, regional and national – diminishing due to severe financial constraints, a new model for emergency management. "Community resilience" must once again become the "new" normal!
Deke Copenhaver currently serves as Mayor of Augusta, Georgia having been first elected in 2005 to serve out an unexpired term and being subsequently re-elected in 2006 and 2010.
John B. Copenhaver is president and CEO of Contingency Management Group. He serves as senior advisor to the Business Continuity Institute.
General Session 6
Operational Resilience – What Is It, And How Can You Achieve It?
10:45 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
Christopher Burgher CISSP, PMP, CISA, Principal SunGard Consulting Services
Business Continuity professionals are asked to make the organization ‘resilient’ – but what does that mean? How do you measure it? And how do you create a program that spans the enterprise without being perceived as the ‘DR’ team? This presentation explores the three pillars of operational resilience defined as business continuity management, information security, and IT operations – and offers a powerful approach for focusing on operational risk exposures, identifying measurable improvement, and driving operational resilience, so that leaders can have greater certainty, lower risk, and better-managed costs.
Christopher Burgher CISSP, PMP, CISA, Principal, SunGard Consulting Services
Wednesday
General Session 7
Reputation Resiliency in a Volatile Environment
8:15 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.
Linda Locke Reputare, Consulting
Randall Till, Till Continuity Group
Executives have two responsibilities – protect revenue and protect reputation. A strong reputation enables a company to achieve its business objectives with fewer obstacles.
This session will cover key steps to understand and identify reputational risks. With proactive management and intelligent reaction during a crisis, they will show how greater reputation resiliency can be achieved, including a discussion on the role of social media in managing the risks and impacts to an organizations reputation. They will demonstrates how business continuity planning can develop enterprise-wide reputation competence as a core part of the program.
Linda Locke is the principal and founder of Reputare Consulting LLC.
Randall Till, MBCI, MBCP, is principal and founder of Till Continuity Group.
General Session 8
Catastrophic Traumatic Events
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Roberta Flynn, ARS
James McGee, Soufan Group
David Smith, PWI
The effects of a catastrophic traumatic event can last a lifetime. This is particularly true for those unprepared to deal with such an out of the ordinary incident and those without psychological resilience. The panel discussion session will give participants the opportunity to ask the experts. Leadership issues, long and short term psychological considerations and operational effects of traumatic events will be discussed with an extensive Q & A period.
Roberta Flynn, Psy.D., is the disaster mental health activity lead for the American Red Cross.
James A. McGee is senior security consultant for The Soufan Group and ESPN.
David A. Smith is founder of Professional Workplace Interaction, Inc..
General Sesssion 9
You Can Communicate In A Crisis, But Will You Connect?
10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Barry Pruitt, Pinnacle Business Concepts Inc.
You know the basic principles of crisis communications – have a plan in place, protect the firms' reputation, be accessible to media, leverage social media, pick your spokesperson carefully, etc. In this session explore a deeper dive into the realm of communicating in a crisis. Learn insights from behavioral psychology, differences between public communications and those directed internally, how (in a world of transparency) to balance candor with the risks of losing competitive advantage, ways (in a society that over-communicates) you can "manage" communications, tips to leverage hostage negotiation tools in framing your message, and – more importantly, how to connect with your audiences.
Barry Pruitt is managing partner with Pinnacle Business Concepts, Inc.