Meet the speakers at this year’s Continuity Insights Management Conference, then click here to learn more about the 2023 event.
Will Scobie
Horizonscan
How do you avoid being complacent in your role?
Working in resilience is exciting because you get to work on the frontline of managing risks and responding to events. The challenge for us is to not get complacent. Business Impact Analysis and Risk Assessments are continuous processes, not one-off projects. Organisations and risk are ever changing, and we are professional must always be development. I constantly try to push my own understanding, whilst ensuring I look at different sources about what is going on in the world. It is too easy to get into your own echo chamber. It can sometimes be uncomfortable to listen to ideas or articles that you don’t agree with, but we must keep trying because mistakes in our profession can be disastrous for our organisation or for our clients.
What is the biggest risk that you’ve taken?
During COVID-19, the former owners of Horizonscan wanted to step away from the business. At this point I took a risk and brought together the employees of the business to purchase the company from the owners. Since then, Horizonscan has gone from strength to strength – all with the knowledge that whatever we earn comes back to us jointly as employee owners. Any new employees also become co-owners in the business. It was a big risk at the time, but it is one that I have never regretted taking.
What advice would you give to your younger self at the start of your career?
Train in cyber. I have three Masters degrees in various subjects – I wish I had taken one of these in cyber resilience! Slightly tongue in cheek, but I wish I had spent more time understanding technology and cyber. Like many people, I fell into this career unintentionally and have had to retrain.
How do you, your team or company define success?
Success for us as a consultancy firm is in helping our clients to become more resilient. We tell our team that they should be constantly asking themselves “will this make our client more resilient?”. At the end of each client engagement or contract, we always reflect on the impact that we have had and whether that client is more resilient as a result of what we have done. That for us is what success looks like. It is the purpose of our business – to make organisations more resilient.
To learn more about Will’s session and to view the full conference agenda, click here.
