Our team

Rick is a senior advisor in organisational resilience and strategic risk mitigation and is a founding partner of resilience and crisis specialists ResilienC. With over 20 years’ experience as a Partner at Deloitte and KPMG, he was also Chair of the British Standards Institution Technical Committee for Continuity and Resilience, where he has been influential in the development of British and International Standards in the field.  He is a member of the Cabinet Office Behavioural Science Expert Group as part of the National Security Risk Assessment process for the UK, and a visiting professor at King's College London and visiting fellow at Cranfield University School of Management. He was a contributor and co-editor of the National Preparedness Commission’s report: Resilience Reimagined: A Practical Guide for Organisations.

Visit Rick's LinkedIn profile here. 

Seth Schultz is Chief Executive of Resilience First's partner, Resilience Rising. He has a long track record of building consensus and initiating change in the field of sustainable development, and of raising international awareness on the role of cities in tackling climate change.

With over 20 years of experience, Seth’s background is as a geologist and environmental scientist. Driven by the need to create change in urban sustainability he has worked with leading and innovative organizations in this space including the Louis Berger Group, the US Green Building Council, the Clinton Foundation, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, the Global Covenant of Mayors, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where he was Co-Chair of the Scientific Steering Committee for Cities IPCC and served as a lead author on the ground breaking IPCC Special Report on 1.5 Degrees.

His recent work has focused on turning theory to practice, whether developing a global standard for Greenhouse Gas Emissions in cities, founding new organizations such as The Coalition for Urban Transitions, or a hard-hitting report on Mayoral powers and the ability and need for city leaders to become global change makers.

Seth sits on various boards and advisory councils, is a sought-after speaker and guest lecturer, and has authored numerous articles, reports, blogs and thought leadership pieces around the world. He has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Binghamton University.

Visit Seth's LinkedIn profile here.

Xavier is on the Operations team at Resilience First. Prior to this, he was Head of Operations for the Resilience Shift programme at Arup’s International Development group, and a Sustainability Project Manager for Suez Environnement. 

Xavier is passionate about building programmes to facilitate the world’s transition to a sustainable and net-zero economy, while building resilience in our society’s systems to cope with unexpected events.  

During his professional career, Xavier has worked as a researcher and project manager of EU-funded programmes on urban resilience, sustainability, Life Cycle Assessment and carbon footprint. He has co-authored 9 publications in these topics. 

Beena is responsible for the strategic partnership and engagement direction of Resilience First’s corporate membership base and networks.

With over 20 years’ experience in the membership sector, Beena was previously the Events Director at London First, where she grew their programme of membership engagement through an expanded calendar of events with senior executives and politicians, whilst at the same time leading on large-scale commercial summits (including East West Institute’s second Worldwide Cyber Security Summit) and awards ceremonies. Beena also spearheaded Skills London, the UK’s largest careers fair for 15 to 24 years old, and the London Planning Awards, organised in partnership with the Mayor of London. 

Prior to that, Beena was the Head of Membership at the French Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain (FCCGB), where she grew their membership base and introduced new member services to increase the network’s engagement. At the FCCGB, Beena also had the opportunity to work with the French government as well as HRH The Prince of Wales.

Beena currently sits on the Board of the Global Tech Advocates Future of Work Committee and is excited to also recently be appointed to the International Security Expo Advisory Council.

Outside of work, Beena enjoys life with her family, yoga and travelling.

Visit Beena's LinkedIn profile here.

Shazre is a programme leader and strategic advisor with over 10 years’ experience in designing and delivering high-impact initiatives for some of the world’s leading organisations and through public-private partnerships. As an Associate Director within the Climate & Resilience Hub at WTW (Willis Towers Watson), from 2019-2022 Shazre was seconded to the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment (CCRI), a private sector-led initiative with over 125 members supporting investors and policy makers to better integrate physical climate risks in investment decision making. As Programmes and Partnerships lead, Shazre designed and grew the Coalition’s technical programmes such as the CCRI Systemic Resilience Forum and climate resilience pilot projects in multiple jurisdictions, as well as its strategic partnerships globally. Prior to this, Shazre was a senior consultant within the Human Capital advisory arm of WTW, where she led the end-to-end delivery of large-scale change management, communications and talent strategy programmes for global corporates with a focus on the FMCG and retail sectors.

Shazre holds an MSc. in Conflict and Development from SOAS, University of London, and a BSc. (Hons) in Social Sciences and Economics.

Visit Shazre’s LinkedIn profile here.

George is the Director of the Engineering Leadership Group, the first of its kind peer to peer engagement platform with a vision to capture the voice of engineering firms worldwide. The Engineering Leadership Group is created and delivered by Resilience First and the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure, members of the Resilience Rising Consortium.

From 2019 to 2022, he was Greece's Deputy Secretary-General for Civil Protection. Before that, he was Technical Officer at the European Commission Joint Research Center, where his area of expertise revolved around emergency management, critical infrastructure protection and hybrid threats. Prior to joining the Joint Research Center, he was a Disaster Management Consultant. He has worked in four countries, developed two strategic national risk assessments, helped organize over 60 exercises, developed a dozen emergency operations plans and responded to disasters in the field. He also was a Research Scientist at the Technical University of Crete in Greece, where his interdisciplinary research lay at the intersection of systems engineering and disaster resilience.

George earned his Doctorate in Environmental Science and Engineering from Saint-Etienne School of Mines in France. He also holds degrees in Civil Engineering, Disaster Management and Business Administration, and is a Certified Emergency Manager by the International Association of Emergency Managers.

Visit George's LinkedIn profile here.

Born and raised in Venice, Italy, Laura obtained two master’s degrees in Languages, Economic & Legal Institutions of East Asia, and Advertising: Art Direction & Copywriting and has worked in several countries.

As a marketing strategist, she plays a crucial role in planning and delivering a programme of activities to engage and grow Resilience First’s membership base.

Laura has gained a wealth of knowledge while creating and delivering engaging, effective, and often award-winning communications campaigns across digital and traditional channels. She is multilingual and that along with her global work experience has allowed Laura the opportunity to gain insights and adapt to a variety of professional cultures.

Visit Laura’s LinkedIn profile here.

Laura Saarinen is in the Operations team at Resilience First. She joined from NCD Alliance, a global civil society network where she worked as part of their Partnerships & Membership team.

Laura started her career as a journalist in her home country in Finland, and later supported the work of the press offices at the U.S. embassies in Sweden and the UK. More recently, Laura coordinated media development activities under an international, cross-sector consortium at Thomson Reuters Foundation. Prior to that, she coordinated the set up and delivery of a pilot grants programme at Institute for Strategic Dialogue, in collaboration with Google.org.

Laura is passionate about supporting and building strong teams, and developing networks and programmes that are diverse, inclusive, and have long-term impact on societal challenges.

Before moving to the UK, Laura completed a BA in journalism in Finland and an MA in media and communication studies in Sweden.