Latest Updates

Resilience First and Resilience Rising are pleased to bring you a new podcast series – Leading for Resilience: Uncovering what works. Hosted by Shazre Quamber-Hill and Peter Willis, the Leading for Resilience podcast invites change makers from around the world to reflect on what kind of leadership they think builds essential resilience in this time of permacrisis.

Just before the onset of the monsoon season in the India subcontinent, we partnered with our Associate member Mumbai First to deliver the Global Coastal Cities Summit in Mumbai, India. Organised under the umbrella of India’s 2023 Presidency of the G20, this international event was a global conversation on climate solutions for coastal cities, including futureproofing, sustainable flood mitigation and the cross-financing of climate mitigation and adaptation.

As part of our commitment to drive resilience at scale, Resilience First will be working closely with the UN High-Level Climate Champions’ (HLC) teams and the Race to Resilience Campaign, which some of our members have been engaged with since 2021. In this regular series, we will be keeping you up to date with the key highlights and activities within the current Egyptian presidency, and as well as what to expect for COP28 as preparations get underway.

The UK is entering a new era of resilience planning with the recently published UK Government Resilience Framework, how will the policy that controls development in the UK assist us in making our communities and the businesses within more resilient?

Since Covid many organisations have become more resilient simply because of the pandemic, surprisingly they worked out different ways to continue to deliver what they were doing, as for most of them pandemic wasn't in their business continuity plans and just wasn't in their thinking pre-Covid. Nevertheless, at senior levels in organisations, there is still a confusion about what resilience is, what it means for an organisation and what they need to do about it.

Resilient leaders are not born. It is a lifelong learning journey that begins in childhood, overcoming obstacles to develop self-awareness, having transformative conversations to bring clarity in crises, and building a resilient mindset to create the agency for change. A continual learning journey.

We had a very successful trip to Cannes for MIPIM 2023, and we thank our members for joining our events on the roof top, the challenging wind has arguably made us more resilient...

In this new regular series, we will be keeping you up to date with the key highlights and activities within the current Egyptian presidency, as well as what to expect for COP28 as preparations get underway.

In February 2023 Resilience First, with PA Consulting, published a new report – Whole of Society Resilience: Steps to Success. The report focuses on action that aligns with the UK Government's Resilience Framework ambitions to strengthen and underpin systems that provide national resilience to the threats we now face. Find out what’s inside and why your action matters.

What kind of leadership is needed for this Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world we now live in, and how can leaders be better prepared for the challenges that this type of uncertainty creates, so that businesses don't just survive but thrive?

In today's globalised economy, infrastructures and supply chains are closely related. The vast interdependencies create vulnerabilities stemming from cascading failures, which occur when a disruption in one system deprives another system of its required inputs or support services. What does this mean for organisational resilience?

One year after the establishment of the Engineering Leadership Group (ELG), the new ELG Manifesto has been launched. The Manifesto advocates for infrastructure that is fit for the future, while outlining actions that can be taken by engineering-inclusive organisations to advance the development of equitable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure. It calls on private sector organisations to work closely with governments towards this goal.

Recently we added two new stars to the team: Shazre Quamber-Hill, Director of Network Strategy and Impact, and George Karagiannis, Engineering Leadership Group Director. To get to know Shazre and George, we invited them for a Q&A session.

Resilience First is delighted to announce Rick Cudworth as its new Chair. Rick’s appointment follows the recruitment of Martyn Link as Executive Director who joined Resilience First in September 2022.

Today's infrastructures were designed 50 or 100 years ago, based on past assumptions. Climate change is already stressing these same systems by exposing them to greater hazard intensities than what they were originally designed for. How does organisational resilience need to adapt for the future?

A new report on steps needed to achieve whole of society resilience has been produced by Resilience First in collaboration with PA Consulting. 'Whole of society reslience: Steps to success' report focuses on activity that aligns with the UK Government’s Resilience Framework ambitions, which can be developed and actioned over the coming year.

Supply chains have recently been facing increasing pressure from multiple stressors, including the global Covid-19 pandemic (and Brexit in the UK), and in 2023 these strains do not seem to be slowing down. In this article, we delve into the top supply chain challenges, and what businesses are doing to address them, remain resilient, and not only survive, but thrive in 2023 and beyond. 

Improving an entire country's ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from extremely challenging events is a monumental task. What can you do as a business leader to shape a better, more resilient future for all?

According to the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report (2020), more than half the world's GDP ($44tn) is at risk of disruption due to nature loss. Nature-positive business models on the other hand, have the potential to generate $10 trillion in annual business opportunities and create 395 million jobs by 2030. Resilience First responded to the Race to resilience Campaign on the significance of COP15 and the role that the UNFCC High Level Climate Champions can play in putting a spotlight on the biodiversity conservation agenda.

Personal Resilience is a Mind Set. Most of our formal education and training systems don't produce this quality as a learning outcome in their graduands. If we are to achieve a whole of society approach to national resilience, then we also have to have a 'whole of the person' approach to education, training and learning.

What should leaders do to create a thriving workplace that people will not only want to join and stick around in, but that will inspire creativity, innovation and high performance?

July 2022 was the month that Boris Johnson resigned, and the launch of PAS 808. One gained more press attention than the other. However, whilst Boris is consigned to the backbenches, purpose is gathering momentum. As businesses face an increasingly uncertain 2023, the words of The Purpose Upgrade resonate. “Change your business to save the world. Change the world to save your business”.

The Cabinet Office has just published the UK Government Resilience Framework.

The document is based on resilience in six key areas: Risk, Responsibilities and Accountability, Partnerships, Community, Investment and Skills.

The tragedy that occurred in June 2017 was completely avoidable. 5 years on, there are still important lessons to learn. Resilience First, in partnership with the Fire Protection Association, brought together a panel of industry experts over a live session discussing the outcomes of Phase 2 of the inquiry, the revised regulatory landscape and the implications for businesses. What does the Grenfell Tower Inquiry mean for business from a regulatory and advisory standpoint?