Agenda for Surge 2019

Using Assurance to Exercise Multiple Business Lines and Locations

Ray Holloman, Business Continuity Administrator, HCA Healthcare

What happens when you have multiple lines of business running out of one data center, and you are responsible for the disaster recovery testing for all of them? IT Disaster Recovery becomes more complex every day with more lines of business needing more IT resiliency to reduce downtime. Learn more about how HCA Healthcare uses Assurance CM to create and maintain plans for each line of business, along with tracking the testing of those plans and creating consistency through Assurance Reporting features.

The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Emergency Management Response & Recovery

Dr. Bernard A. Jones, CBCP, Assistant Professor, St. John’s University

This presentation will review organizational resilience indicators and will specifically examine the topic of leadership. There is little doubt that the continued development and advancement of the emergency management industry rests in the hands of its leaders. It takes leaders with the ability to fully engage and empathize and temper one's own ambitions and feelings in lieu of the greater good regarding emergency management response and recovery efforts. This has been found to be the very essence of effective leadership and also the core tenet of emotional intelligence. This presentation explores the links between organizational resilience, leadership and emotional intelligence within the context of emergency management response and recovery.

OnSolve – Vision into the Future

Ann Pickren, President, OnSolve

Since their acquisition of Send Word Now in 2017, OnSolve has been creating their vision of for the future direction of emergency notification solutions. In this session, Ann Pickren, President of OnSolve, will combine industry research information with the OnSolve product vision to provide insight into coming enhancements for the OnSolve notification platforms.

How to Use Assurance for IT DR Planning and Testing

Doug Sawyer, Enterprise Disaster Recovery Coordinator & Team Lead, Kroger

Doug will present a brief overview of Kroger, their IT DR Program and how they use AssuranceCM and NM for IT DR plans and testing. We will also have an open discussion as to how others use and plan to use Assurance CM and NM in planning and testing.

Preparedness on the Go - Accessing Plans from the Mobile App and Best Practices

Michele Corvino, VP of Product Management, Assurance Software

During a crisis, it is critical that the right people have the right information on the right device. This session will discuss how organizations can roll out their plans and playbooks to the broader organization.

Convergence of Cybersecurity and Business Continuity

Mike Moniz, Principal Consultant, Assurance Certified Engineer (ACE)

54% of companies report that they have experienced one or more cyber attacks in the last year.  Only 38% of global organizations state that they are prepared to handle a sophisticated cyber-attack. During this interactive session, participants will learn about the: Convergence of Cybersecurity and Business Continuity, roles and responsibilities of individuals involved in the cyber incident response program, and the threat actors that perpetrate Cybersecurity crimes. 

You will walkthrough a Cybersecurity Incident Response plan built out in Assurance^CM  and hear about real world experiences from our expert’s interaction with numerous client programs as well as some of the main lessons learned from over 100 Cybersecurity exercises.

Strategic Honesty: Transforming Relationships for a Healthy Program through BIA

Mike Weaver, Disaster Recovery Specialist, M&T Bank

Business Continuity Plans are only as good as the assumptions they rely on. Without honest and accurate priorities, the people building and using these plans may feel as if they do so for questionable value. A broken Business Impact Analysis can be devastating to the health of the program. M&T Bank was stuck at this impasse at the end of 2017. Amidst stale data, and growing tensions, M&T Bank and Assurance Software Inc. renewed a strained relationship into a strategic partnership. This case study looks at the convergence of User Experience (UX) Research, Professional Services and Voice of The Customer. Honest communication and surprising innovation result in shared successes for M&T Bank and ASI.

How to Use Your Data to Gain Executive Attention for Your Program

Scott Williams, VP of Customer Success & Rory Middleton, Sr. Implementation Engineer, Assurance Software

Description coming soon.

Utilizing Assurance to Achieve the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP)

Dawn Moen, Loss Control Analyst, OMB-Risk Management Division, State of ND

In this session Dawn Moen from State of North Dakota will discuss how Assurance CM is utilized to achieve the continuity portion of the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) the voluntary standards, assessment, and accreditation process for disaster preparedness programs throughout the country.

What Auditors Want to See in an IT Security Audit

Chris Rossi, Senior Manager, IT Security Audit, Vanguard

Preparing for an audit can be challenging and stressful if you don’t have a clear understanding of the auditors focus and goals. In this breakout session, Chris will outline what exactly an IT Security Auditor is likely to focus on within your environment, and how you can best prepare your organization beforehand. This session will cover both general best practices as well as examples from a few of the most common regulatory requirements that are often the driver for IT Security Audits.

Progression to Organizational Resilience Has Us All Smiling

Andy Wyley, Director of Organizational Resilience & Melissa Rhodes, Manager of Disaster and Recovery, SmileDirectClub

In one year the group at SmileDirectClub has expanded its original scope of business continuity to include disaster recovery, incident management, emergency management and compliance. Hear from the team as they discuss how they are building the disciplines and putting processes and training in place to work towards organizational resilience.

Sending Notifications in CM

Stan Kuruvilla, Product Marketing Manager, Assurance Software

Whether it is part of an exercise or during an actual incident, it is critical that you can notify the people designated within your plans. This session will review how to notify employees, partners, and others (via AssuranceNM) from within the AssuranceCM module.

Be Proactive: The Benefits of Planning for Climate Risks

Tashonda Haugabrook, Adjunct Professor, Graduate Program in Emergency & Disaster Management, Metropolitan College of New York

We face a host of climate risks around the world today, often in the form of weather extremities – extreme winds; extreme flooding; several, back-to-back, high category hurricanes in one season. Our unpredictable environment forces continuity planners to consider hazards once unimaginable. As well, regulations are beginning to reflect the NEED for organizations to consider climate risks.  As a result, climate risks and the planning, preparation and adaptation for these will be a high priority for resilience investment in the coming years.

Behind the Scenes:  Ask the Product Team

Assurance Product Team

Have you ever wondered how software releases are done?  What happens in the room during Sprint Demos?  How the Dev and Product Teams work together to build Assurance?  This session is going to give an overview of our development process from roadmap to release.  The Product team and some guests from Development will be there to answer any questions you have about the process, the product and the roadmap.

Best Practices in the Use of AssuranceNM

Beth Frasure, Business Continuity Program Administrator, D.A. Davidson Companies

In this session, Beth Frasure will share her experience testing and integrating the AssuranceNM system with her employees, and what she considers to be the best practices for and results of a successful test. She has a bachelor’s degree in Business and Psychology along with various Business Continuity Certificates including the CBCP from DRII, Certified Continuity Manager (ISO 22301 Specialist) with The National Institute for Business Continuity Management, and ITIL certified.

Managing Data Feeds for Effective Integration and Program Oversight

Willie Kennedy, Enterprise Business Resiliency Product Manager, KeyBank

With the installation of any system comes the responsibility of managing the data used and produced by the system. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery planning systems require data that is highly managed and maintained to provide the most accurate view of the business and its dependencies. Output from systems such as Assurance also feed critical attributes and relationships to other systems across the enterprise. This presentation will examine how KeyBank manages their Assurance data using Assurance Connect, manual data loads/extracts and other tools to provide the most accurate information possible to build and maintain business and technology recovery plans.

How to Use Your Data to Gain Executive Attention for Your Program

Scott Williams, VP of Customer Success & Rory Middleton, Sr. Implementation Engineer, Assurance Software

Description coming soon.