On October 15th the BSCC were delighted to welcome our members to an evening exploring operational resilience in a changing world, graciously hosted by Global Relay.
We had the privilege of listening to a panel of four experts discussing the future-proofing of business as geopolitical tensions, cyber threats and disruption to critical infrastructure continue to reshape the risk landscape. The panel consisted of Alex Viall, Chief Knowledge Information Officer at Global Relay, Åsa Jamal, SVP Head of Group Communication, Public and Regulatory Affairs and Brand at Vattenfall, Sara Malmgren, Partner, Head of IT & Information Security and CISO at Eversheds Sutherland, and Adam Lakhani, Security Director at International SOS. The panel was expertly moderated by James Savage, Co-founder and Publishing Director of The Local.
The evening started by discussing the threat landscape. Here, several issues related to geopolitical tensions were raised, but the common thread throughout the discussion was the unknown itself – evident in recent attacks on organisations that might previously have been seen as implausible but now pose real threats. A theme throughout the evening was that the volatility seen today should not be perceived as temporary and that businesses need to understand the importance of resilience throughout the entire organisation as the increasingly unfamiliar and non-linear development of the world continues. Businesses need to be agile, communicative, and build muscle memory to ensure that every employee understands the risks at hand, the responsibility that comes with their work, and how to respond and adapt to these risks.
The discussion then moved on to highlight the role of third parties and the importance of security measures across the entire supply chain. Here, the panel emphasised the need for organisations to make demands on their suppliers, map risks, and to ensure due diligence. Before questions, the panel was asked what they would recommend that an organisation not on top of its operational resilience between now and the end of the year start doing. The panel stressed the need to map the understanding of the C-suit level and assess the maturity of the organisation, and to understand where in the organisation the highest ROI is for implementing security and resilience measures. They also pointed to the need for incident response planning and having a pragmatic approach to resilience implementation.
The evening continued with questions from members, with the discussion moving from an organisational level to a national level. The key themes were the preparedness and awareness of Swedish and the UK society, who is actually responsible for ensuring operational resilience and what level of transparency organisations and governmental bodies should have.
We extend our sincere thanks to our speakers, Alex, Åsa, Sara and Adam, for sharing their expertise, to James for moderating the discussion, and to our generous host, Global Relay, for welcoming us. We also thank all our members and guests who attended and contributed to the conversation.
