Caroline Sapriel is the founder and Managing Partner of CS&A, a specialist risk and crisis and business continuity management consulting firm with offices in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Belgium, The Netherlands, Singapore, and the United States. With over 25 years’ experience in risk and crisis management, Caroline is recognized as a leader in her profession and acknowledged for her ability to provide customized, results-driven counsel at the highest level.

Over the years, Caroline has advised senior corporate executives in high-risk industries internationally. Her multi-disciplinary background and experience has enabled her to provide clients with an in-depth analysis of their crisis management capability as well as help them develop effective risk and crisis response organizations and stakeholder and reputation management strategies. She has been directly involved in helping clients manage crises in the oil and gas, chemical, transport, shipping, aviation, pharmaceutical and consumer product sectors. Caroline is an accomplished trainer, facilitator and coach in risk, issues and crisis management as well as in communication skills. As such, she has coached many senior executives at leading multinational corporations internationally. Caroline regularly speaks at international conferences and seminars on risk and crisis management. She is a guest lecturer on corporate crisis management at the University of Antwerp and at the graduate school of public administration of Leiden University. Caroline is a member of the Business Continuity Institute, of the International Association of Business Communicators and serves on its global ethics committee, and of the European Association of Communications Directors. In 2011, she received a Gold Quill Award from IABC for her firm’s 10 Commandments of Crisis Management. She has authored many articles on the subject of crisis management and co-authored two books – Crisis Management – Tales From the Front Line and 25 years of Crises in Review: The Good , The Bad and The Ugly – with CS&A Senior Partner Dirk Lenaerts. Prior to establishing her own consulting firm, Caroline held various senior management positions with international communications consultancies where she helped clients respond to crises and enhance their crisis communication capabilities. Caroline is fluent in French, English, Spanish, Hebrew and Mandarin, and holds a BA degree in Chinese Studies and a BSc degree in International Relations.

Dirk Lenaerts is Joint Managing Director of CS&A. Dirk works with clients internationally to assess risk, evaluate their crisis management capabilities and designs response structures and processes specifically suited to their organization, environment, culture, and the risks and issues they face.

Dirk Lenaerts is particularly involved in the development of products and tools, such as Crisiscom© and CrisisScan©, that help clients enhance their risk and crisis management capability. He leads the research and planning of risk and crisis scenarios as well as the organization, management and debrief of crisis simulation exercises. He has developed and established integrated risk and crisis management systems for many of CS&A long-term clients. His extensive experience in international business and his in-depth understanding of different management styles coupled with his analytical and problem-solving skills provide clients with the right combination of talents and expertise to help define and implement robust yet flexible crisis management strategies. Prior to joining CS&A, Dirk Lenaerts worked for Western and Asian companies in Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and China, where he spent a total of eighteen years. He has also acted as a consultant to various manufacturers. Over the years, he has handled a variety of assignments including joint-venture and agency contract negotiations, and the establishment, transfer and restructuring of manufacturing facilities. Fluent in Dutch, English, French, German and Mandarin, Dirk Lenaerts is able to counsel multinationals in diverse markets. He holds an undergraduate degree in Sinology from the University of Ghent, Belgium.

As CS&A’s Business Manager, Barbara Helmer supports the CS&A team in all aspects of business administration and liaison with international clients leads including contracts and finances. Barbara also supports and participates in the facilitation and delivery of client projects.

Prior to joining CS&A, Barbara’s 30 year career has covered Human Resources and Facility and Office Management across a number of industries and countries for companies such as Merrill Lynch, Carre Orban & Partners and Schering-Plough. In the USA, where she lived for over a year, she managed the Financial and Purchasing Department of a shipyard in Louisiana, which produced Crane Barges for the Offshore Industry. More recently Barbara worked in the hospitality industry in Italy, where she managed several luxurious Tuscan villas catering to international guests interested in high-end holidays including hands-on cooking classes with noted professional chefs. Fluent in Dutch, English and German, Barbara is an accomplished Italian speaker and possesses the basics of French conversation. She is based in Amsterdam but works across the globe.

Louis Cauffman is an Associate with CS&A providing clients with specialized counsel and training in the areas of stress management as well as public and family assistance in preparation for and/or during crises. He designs and runs workshops for corporations, which recognize the impact of crises on employees, victims and next-of kin, and their associated multi-cultural sensitivities.

Louis Cauffman has extensive experience as a psychotherapist, particularly in family and systems therapy, groups dynamics and solution-focused therapy. He is involved in numerous international training and teaching programs. Louis Cauffman is the designer of SolutionFocused Management, a brand new way of tackling day-to-day management challenges. This management method focuses on the exceptions to the problems instead of fixating on the problem-side of problems. These exceptions are then the starting points of an incisive new method of rapidly creating alternative solutions. Problem-solving hereby becomes obsolete and is replaced by solution-building. SolutionFocused Management enhances the manager’s capabilities of again becoming the creator of his own solutions. Louis Cauffman is the Founder and Managing Director of The Bruges Group, an international holding of several training institutes in France, the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1986, Louis Cauffman founded his own consulting firm, Integrative Management Institute, that specializes in consulting family businesses. With his particular expertise in family and solution-focused therapy and his understanding the business environment, he helps CS&A clients manage and communicate more effectively with victims and next of kin in the high-stress context of crises. He was recently a keynote speaker to the “First International Conference for Systemic Management” to be held in Vienna, during which he conducted a two-day seminar on Solution Management. Louis Cauffman graduated in Psychology in 1980 from the University of Leuven, Belgium.

Ian Tope is a Senior Associate with CS&A based in the United Kingdom.

Through his experience in Senior Leadership positions in the oil and gas industry across the globe Ian Tope provides CS&A’s clients with best practice in Technical Safety Engineering, Process Safety Assurance, Project Management and Risk Management. To date, he has conducted a number of Technical Integrity and Process Controls audits for clients in the Oil and Gas industry. Prior to joining CS&A, Ian Tope had a long career in Shell in various locations around the globe. The majority of his career was in Safety Engineering, including positions such as Chief Safety Engineer for Shell Upstream Americas and Global Process Safety Assurance. He has also had roles in plant management and project design, construction and commissioning. Ian Tope is a chartered engineer and member of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects (RINA). He studied at Brighton and Edinburgh Universities in the UK and has a B.Sc. (1st Class) in Building and M.Sc. in Fire and Explosion Safety. He has been a member of several industry bodies including chairing the UKOOA Hazard Management Sub-Committee and a member of the API workgroup that prepared the Recommended Practice “Design of Offshore Facilities Against Fire and Blast Loading”.

Koen is a Senior Consultant with CS&A International based in Belgium working with clients internationally. He joined CS&A in 2010, and has been working with clients to develop and implement risk management systems, develop crisis processes, establish stakeholder mapping and scenario planning capabilities, as well as overall business continuity and contingency planning. He is particularly involved in all crisis exercises including designing scenarios and developing and controlling simulation drills.

Certified by the Business Continuity Institute (CBCI), he helps design and deliver CS&A’s risk, crisis and business continuity training programmes, conducts audits in risk and crisis management and implements CS&A’s own crisis readiness diagnostic ©CrisiScan for a wide range of clients across industry sectors.

When not working on client projects, Koen conducts research into current best practices and case studies to ensure that CS&A continues to lead in the field of risk, crisis and business continuity management. He also contributes to the updates of CS&A’s tools and their customised application. In addition, Koen was highly involved in the in-house development of the first online training courses for CS&A’s ©CrisisEcademy.

Prior to joining CS&A, Koen had wide-ranging experience in the distribution sector, assessing risks and optimising the supply chain and had an extensive traineeship at Atlas Copco in Shanghai.

Since 2016, he is Chair of the Communications Committee American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium, where he has served on the Committee for the past six years.

He is fluent in Dutch, English, French and studied Mandarin. He holds a degree in International Business from the University College of Mechelen, Belgium.

Of Russian nationality, Lina Kolesnikova is an Associate with CS&A based in Brussels, with extensive experience in both the governmental and non-governmental sectors including the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), the Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels-based think-tank) and the International Crisis Group (international NGO working in conflict prevention). She counsels clients in conflict resolution, NGO and stakeholder relationship management, and European energy supply and security issues.

Lina has advised on relations between ex-Soviet Union Republics and Western countries and is familiar with the socio-political economic environment and issues of this region. Lina researches and writes on a wide range of topical issues arising from recent and current events on the global scene, and is a frequent speaker and moderator at international meetings and conferences. Her latest publications include articles on crisis management in the Crisis Response Journal. Prior to joining CS&A, she was public relations manager for a large financial institution. She has also held various teaching assignments in Russian political history with Universities and NGOs in Russia. She has been a coordinator of ICONS, the University of Maryland’s on-line strategic conflict resolution and crisis management tool, now brought to the private sector exclusively by CS&A. During her work for Interweek forum (NGO at Novosibirsk State University), she managed all trainings and workshops with up to 1,000 participants every year. She co-ordinated all activities and communication with the Club of Rome, Gorbachev’s Fund, state and local public authorities, various Ministries and NGOs, the World Bank, and The Russian Parliament, among others. Lina holds an MA Degree in History (Novosibirsk State University, Russia), a Post-graduate Degree in International and European Relations (Amsterdam School of International Relations, the Netherlands) and a Post-graduate Degree in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management (Leicester University, UK). She also holds certificates from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) on peacekeeping and international conflict resolution, global terrorism, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution, international humanitarian law, and negotiation of financial transactions.

John de Beus is an Associate with CS&A based in Spain. Prior to joining CS&A, John has had a wide-ranging career in Shell, which included the development and operationalization of company capability to carry out business contingency and continuity planning, crisis management and operational emergency response.

Through his experience in various leadership positions in the oil and gas industry across the globe ranging from on- and offshore operations, John defined policies, strategies and processes, set standards, and carried out benchmarking.

As a Shell-certified Crisis Manager, John de Beus provides CS&A’s clients with best practice in crisis management, business contingency, continuity planning and emergency response. He has been instrumental in the design and delivery of company crisis and operational emergency management systems and capability, including:

• Managing numerous emergency response and crisis management events, including staging of complex simulation events, involving all parts of the response process, from operations, logistics, and communications to issues and reputation management;
• Establishing emergency and crisis management structures in Brunei, Oman and Venezuela;
• He has been involved in responding to a variety of emergency and crisis events including pipeline rupture and leaks, H2S release, drifting vessel, H2S accidents, boat crashes, vessels in distress, work and off work fatalities, road accidents, fires, Medevac cases, as well as the Sumburgh Helicopter crash and the Brent Explosion.

John holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering as well as Laboratory Analyst qualifications. A Dutch native speaker, he is fluent in English and Spanish.

Stefan Lütgens is an Associate with CS&A based in Hamburg, Germany. A professional communicator for over 25 years with a wealth of experience in issues management, crisis management and crisis communication, Stefan will work with clients in the German market and German-speaking countries as well as internationally.

Since the mid 1990s, Stefan has been helping international organisations prepare for crises via custom-fit solutions that include developing robust crisis plans, facilitating interactive training workshops and conducting crisis exercises to enhance crisis teams’ level of preparedness. Over the years he has also provided clients with on-call operational support by acting as media spokesman and as interim crisis manager.

Stefan’s extensive in-house and consulting experience provides clients with valuable internal and external perspective to help identify and analyse challenges and opportunities in their crisis management and crisis communications capability. This includes defining, developing and implementing effective strategies and tools as well as bridging gaps between functions to build cross-organization resilience. An experienced project manager, he is equally at ease working with C-suite executives as across all levels in client organisations.

Prior to joining the CS&A team, Stefan worked as an independent consultant and advisor on strategic communications for more than ten years. He also held leadership positions in media and public relations, corporate communications, and corporate and public affairs for a number of international corporations in the automotive and FMCG industries, where issues and crisis management were a key area of activities. For instance, during his eight years working with Kraft Foods in Germany, at its international HQ in London and its EU office in Brussels, Stefan was responsible for the international crisis management system and media training programme. He also managed a wide range of issues and incidents, among them several international product recalls.

Born and raised in Austria, Stefan has lived in several European countries and has gained working experience in more than 30 countries in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa. Fluent in German and English, he holds both a Master’s degree and a PhD in Communication Science from the University of Salzburg in Austria. He is member of the German Public Relations Society’s Crisis Communications and Issues Management working group.

Benjamin Sylvand is an Associate with CS&A based in France. With extensive negotiation and mediation experience, Benjamin Sylvand supports clients in the analysis of conflict and complex situations and the development of bespoke response strategies as well as the conduct of negotiation and mediation.

He is an accomplished executive coach, conflict negotiator and mediator, and has conducted numerous crisis and exercise programmes for clients across industries.

Among his past several positions, Benjamin Sylvand was director of digital pedagogy at Sciences Po Paris, and L&T director at Castorama France Kingfisher, as well as senior consultant with a Paris-based crisis management firm.

Fluent in French and English, Benjamin Sylvand holds a PhD in Philosophy (Sorbonne University, France), Post-Doc at Oxford University and an MBA in communication (Sorbonne University, France. He is also certified in complex negotiations (ADN, France).

Cathy is a former Brussels based correspondent for both the BBC and GMTV and was a main presenter of Channel Four News in the UK.

She has worked as a reporter for RTHK in Hong Kong and for Radio New Zealand in Auckland. Cathy specializes in media and crisis training as well as conference moderating for a wide range of international clients. She also presents European Journal, a weekly magazine program for the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle TV.

A longstanding associate of CS&A International, Jurrit is a cameraman and photographer based in Belgium working with CS&A clients throughout Europe. With over twenty years experience, he is an indispensible professional who co-delivers CS&A’s training programmes including Crisis Media Training, Spokesperson Coaching and Crisis Simulation Exercises. As an independent cameraman and producer, he works for Belgium’s national TV stations; VRT public channel (één, Canvas), VMMA (VTM, 2B, Jimtv), SBS (VT4, 5TV), and Belgium’s main production companies, taking on domestic and international assignments. In addition, Jurrit has extensive experience in making Corporate Films, Documentaries, Reality TV, Travel Programmes, Cooking Shows and Video Clips, with some of his work featured on www.filmtda.be Familiar with most cameras, Jurrit choses the Arri Amira as his loyal partner to create unique and smooth images for clients. Jurrit graduated from Rhitcs, Belgium’s top film school in 1989, having completed two years of study for Film Director, four years for Cameraman, Director of Photography and Sound Engineer.

Alan Morrison is an associate of CS&A based in Tunis, Tunisia, providing clients worldwide with expert counsel on all types of business continuity, crisis management and emergency response issues.  Alan has 20 years experience in the British Diplomatic Service and has worked in London, Bangladesh, Islamabad, Ottawa and Hong Kong.

With extensive experience in writing emergency and business continuity plans for British diplomatic missions Alan is an expert in maintaining organisations core functions throughout a crisis or business continuity event.  Specifically Alan has drafted contingency plans that deal with real threats to the operation of British missions including such diverse threats as terrorism and pandemics. In addition to this, Alan set up, trained and led the British Rapid Deployment Team based in Hong Kong.  This is a team of highly trained officers ready to deploy to any crisis in the South East Asia region.   His current duties in Dhaka include planning the rescue of forced marriage victims in Bangladesh and increasing the resilience of the British network across the South Asian region to respond to crises like the Mumbai attacks and the Bangladesh Rifles mutiny, amongst others. His responsibilities in these areas have given Alan first hand experience in responding to real crises, like the Asian tsunami and the Bali bombings of Oct 05, and more recently the Mumbai Attacks, but also gave him extensive experience in training and testing emergency response mechanisms. This includes running real time practise deployments and other emergency and business continuity scenarios. Frontline response to crises, as part of the British Government, has exposed Alan to dealing with victims and their families in highly charged atmospheres as well as dealing with an often hostile media.  His skills honed in this area, Alan, recognises that good customer care and co-ordinated media handling is one of the keys to good reputation management and protection. Having operated from secure buildings and worked in classified environments, physical security and information protection come as second nature to him and he is experienced in good security techniques and in assessing security situations.  This is a key asset when he has had to operate in potentially dangerous arenas, like responding to a terrorist event or rescuing a victim of forced marriage. Alan is a member of the Business Continuity Institute and is currently studying a Masters in Business Administration through the Open University.

Whitney Foard Small is a Senior Associate of CS&A based in Bangkok, Thailand. With extensive experience in crisis communication and management across industry sectors, Whitney is ideally suited to work with CS&A’s clients at the executive level. A veteran in the field of communications, Whitney Foard Small’s career has spanned the full spectrum of public affairs – from crisis communications, corporate and product communications to CSR, technology, digital and marketing communications. In her previous position as Ford Motor Company’s Regional Director of Communications for Asia Pacific and Africa (APA), Whitney leads a team of 42 communicators in the research, planning and execution of product and corporate communications programs in 11 markets across the region.  In this role, Whitney has transformed Ford’s APA Communications function into an extremely nimble regional team sharing centralized resources to tell the Ford story to every audience and for every product. Prior to joining Ford Motor Company, Whitney served as Asia-Pacific Managing Director for The Hoffman Agency from 2002-2006. Overseeing seven offices throughout Asia Pacific for the agency, Hoffman continued to grow or maintain their staff and industry leading position in each Asia Pacific market, despite the IT and general economic downturn that hit during her tenure and the SARS outbreak in 2003. Whitney’s time at The Hoffman Agency was preceded by five years at The Walt Disney Company, from 1996-2001, where she led the integration the marketing and sales teams and enabled them to achieve three record years, despite the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Whitney’s strategy and planning teams also achieved a reputation for highly accurate forecasting, allowing them to gain greater investment backing for their business plans and move Asia Pacific from last to second place in regional funding. Earlier in her career, Whitney led a team of consultants as Managing Director for Burson-Marsteller’s Thailand operations from 1991-1996. While there she successfully grew the company six fold – from loss to profitability – through a combination of strategic new business wins, client retention and support for the team. Under her watch, Burson-Marsteller Thailand was honored in 1995 by the King of Thailand for work in AIDS education, and received an honor from Mahidol University School of Medicine for efforts in child nutrition education. A Chinese and occasional Thai speaker, Whitney is an Associate Member of the Foreign Correspondents Clubs of Hong Kong and Thailand, where she has been elected to the Board of Executives three times, and a Corporate Member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the US-China Business Council.  A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Whitney also studied at Nankai University in Tianjin, China.

Thomas Helmer is a Senior Director with CS&A based in Hong Kong. Prior to joining CS&A, Thomas Helmer had a wide-ranging career in Shell, which included assessing the effectiveness of risk management, business contingency planning and continuity, crisis management and emergency response. Subsequently, he worked for Nord Stream AG as senior consultant, for TAQA as lead auditor and for two years as Senior Director QMHSE with Maersk Drilling, the leader in offshore drilling technology.

Through his experience in Senior Leadership positions in the oil and gas industry across the globe ranging from on- and offshore operations, defining policies, strategies and processes, setting standards, auditing and benchmarking, Thomas Helmer provides CS&A’s clients with best practice in crisis management, business contingency, continuity planning and emergency response. He is instrumental in the design and delivery of CS&A’s assignments in the high-risk industries internationally.

He has staged numerous emergency response and crisis simulation drills involving all parts of the response process, from operations, logistics, and communications to issues and reputation management.

At the beginning of his career, Thomas Helmer worked for Shell Tankers B.V. for 3 years. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (FIMarST), the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (FIMechE) and the Energy Institute (FEI). He is also a Corporate Member of Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (MIOSH) and International Institute of Risk and Safety Management (MIIRSM).

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Engineering, as well Marine Engineering qualifications.

Linda V. Fancy is an Associate of CS&A International based in Hong Kong. She offers stress management and leadership resilience training and coaching to CS&A clients as an important part of the overall risk and crisis management preparedness.

She is the founder of the MeManagement self-regulation system, and has extensive experience working as a certified neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) practitioner, crisis management specialist, mental freedom facilitator and personal coach. Her experience in soft skills development and long-standing collaboration with CS&A has given her valuable experience as a corporate trainer in crisis leadership, self-management, and stress support services. Her working experience enabled her to recognize that despite having all the right systems and procedures in place, at the height of any crisis, effective self-management boils down to steering your attention rather than being led by your emotions. Linda developed the MeManagement system while working with relief workers in a UNICEF and ministry of mental health initiative in Sri Lanka following the Asian tsunami. Her job involved providing the workers with self-management tools and techniques to prevent personal identification and conditioning getting in the way of their professional consultation in such traumatic conditions. MeManagement is a system of self-transcendence to regulate your focus of attention. It provides self-awareness into conditioned responses, and self-management techniques to detach from negative thoughts and influences before they become an emotion. Linda facilitates MeManagement workshops throughout Asia and at her retreat centre in India. Linda also volunteers her time as a member of the Disaster Relief Fund Selection Team for the NGO Service Civil International in their efforts to provide disaster relief for natural disasters globally.

Semmy Huang is an Associate of CS&A International based in Hong Kong looking after clients in the Greater China Region. A seasoned consultant in crisis communication, media and corporate communication, Semmy has counselled many companies across industry sectors over the past 25 years.

Over the years, Semmy has worked with a number of communications consultancies as well as De Beers Diamond. She has supported organisations in the area of issues and crisis management as well as media relations and strategic reputation plans. She has been a reporter and an editor with various news publications in Taiwan. A native of Taiwan, Semmy holds a BA in Journalism and is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese and English.

Aung Win is an Associate with CS&A based in Yangoon, Myanmar. With extensive safety management experience the oil and gas industry specifically, Aung Win supports clients in the development of emergency response scenarios, training and exercises, as well as in various aspects of safety assessments and audits.

Over the past 35 years, Aung Win has held various positions including senior engineer, team leader and project lead at onshore and offshore oil & gas facilities. He has participated and led many emergency exercises and drills and has also been involved in large process safety reviews, safety auditing, operational improvements, staff mentoring, planning & scheduling, etc.

Aung Win began his career at the Government O&G & Joint Venture O&G Companies in Myanmar and later worked with Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP), Sarawak Shell Petroleum (SSB), Saipem S.p.A. (France, Italy, Angola), PETTEPI (Myanmar), etc.

Aung Win holds a bachelor Degree in Petroleum Engineering from the Rangoon Institute of Technology (Myanmar) and M.Sc. Degree in Natural Gas Engineering from Salford University in the UK.

Suzanne Druce is Executive Consultant with CS&A based in Singapore representing the firm’s interests in the Asia region.

With 25 years in financial and general management for a range of service companies in Europe and Asia, Suzanne’s role comprises strategic development, providing support and maximizing synergy on specific client projects, and support to the growing number of associates in Asia. Suzanne’s area of expertise and personal interest is in enabling companies, and the individuals driving them, to grow their businesses to the next level.  Suzanne brings definition and clarity to business models, eliminating what doesn’t work or isn’t practical. Suzanne’s consulting practice in Singapore nurtures entrepreneurs in start-ups at various phases; and also consults more established companies on the systems, processes and funding to step them up to growth. If you ask Suzanne what she enjoys most in business, she will tell you that by translating corporate/ finance jargon and legalese into common-sense language and everyday situations, she helps clients consolidate their profits and sustain core values as they grow. As part of the CS&A team, Suzanne helps our clients to map crisis and risk management tools and programs to their organisation and to evaluate and mobilise their resources. A long term resident of Asia, Suzanne has spent many years in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and is now at home in Singapore.

Ann Morris is a Washington, DC-based CS&A Associate.  Ann has more than 20 years of experience in national news media, corporate, and nonprofit communications.  Her expertise is in crisis communications, public relations, strategic communications, and media relations. Ann began her career as a journalist, starting in national network television news at ABC News while she was still at university.  Upon graduation, she worked for the network full time as researcher for “This Week with David Brinkley” and as a production assistant.  From there, she became a reporter at the weekly national news magazine U.S. News and World Report where she covered international and domestic news for four years. At the national headquarters of the American Red Cross, crisis preparedness and response were her daily focus.  Ann helped manage the communication response for dozens of crises including the 1999 Oklahoma tornadoes, the earthquake in Turkey and the Kosovo crisis for which she planned and managed a relief mission and media tour to Macedonia.  She worked hand in glove with communicators and local leadership at the more than 700 local Red Cross chapters about communications efforts prior to, during and after a crisis.  This included sharing with them the national communications strategy, making sure they understood all its elements and how best to translate it to their local communities. As vice president of external communications at United Way of America, one of the nation’s leading charities, Ann helped ensure that the more than 1,300 locally governed organizations had in place and knew how to use the organization’s crisis preparedness and response materials.  And Ann was at United Way of America during the events of September 11th 2001.  She helped coordinate the charity’s response efforts and served as one of the main spokespeople.  Additionally, Ann worked closely with the New York branch of the organization to help manage communications for and about the September 11th Fund, one of the most successful charitable efforts to help people who had been affected by the events. Ann also has been a vice president at Ogilvy Public Relations where she supervised media relations efforts for a major pharmaceutical company within Ogilvy’s award-winning Health and Medical Practice.  Most recently, Ann was director of communications at Global Rights, the international human rights organization. While there, she and her team earned seven creative awards in three years.  Ann holds a Bachelor of Arts from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Mark Bernheimer is an associate of CS&A, based in Los Angeles and looking after the firm’s clients throughout the United States. With special expertise in media training, Mark calls upon a rich background in journalism. He is a former national correspondent with CNN, and a 16-year veteran of the broadcast news industry. His unique background in the news media offers a specialized perspective and rare skill set to assist clients in their dealings with reporters, particularly when preparing them for crisis communication. Therefore, Mark founded and is the principal of MediaWorks Resource Group. (www.mediaworksgroup.com)

Mark wrapped up his news career in 2000, leaving CNN’s Los Angeles bureau to apply his expertise in the area of private consulting and training. During his network news tenure, Mark covered all the major U.S. news stories, including the Monica Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the Oklahoma City bombing trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the Washington, D.C. World Trade Organization riots, and the OJ Simpson civil trial. Prior to his employment at CNN, Mark worked as a free-lance reporter for Los Angeles television station KCAL. His work has also appeared on the National Geographic Channel, and on the pages of the Orange County Register. Over the years, Mark’s one-on-one interview subjects have included Henry Kissinger and two California governors, as well as innumerable national political candidates and captains of industry. Mark has worked with major corporations including Sun Microsystems, Nissan Motors, and Four Seasons Hotels, providing internal communications assistance, consulting services, and media training. Mark has a B.A. in Telecommunications and Film from the University of Oregon, and is a member of the Public Relations Society of America.

Stéphane Prud’homme is an Associate of CS&A based in Montreal, Canada. He has over 20 years of experience in Canada, in China and in Southeast Asia, with both large Canadian corporations and international agencies, in the fields of crisis management and emergency communication, reputation management, credibility building, global communication strategy, traditional and online public relations and business communication.

Before moving to Beijing in 2008, Stephane worked for major national corporations in Canada. In this capacity, he supervised multiple events and communication, crisis, and/or media relations plans. As a spokesperson, Stéphane has been interviewed and quoted over 400 times on major Canadian radio, television networks, and newspapers, as well as on local media around the country.

An accomplished trainer, over the years, Stéphane has coached over 600 professionals in Canada, in France, and in Asia in conferences, seminars and workshops on topics such as crisis management and emergency communication, public relations management, integrated communication strategic planning, media relations, spokespersons’ credibility and public speaking. He held a Corporate Training Certification from the Quebec Ministry of Labour and Employment from 2007 to 2015.

In 2007, he founded Public Relations Without Borders, an NGO whose volunteers conduct humanitarian missions in Africa, South America and India. He has also collaborated to the Research Center for Media Relations Foundation within the Chair in Public Relations (UQAM) for which he assumed leadership from 2003 to 2005.

Stéphane holds a Master’s Degree in Organizational Communication with a thesis on Spokesperson’s Credibility in Crisis Situations. He also holds an MBA Degree from the distinguished Rutgers University—achieved in China. Now based in Canada after four years in Hong Kong, he is a PhD Candidate in Business Administration with a research on entrepreneurs’ and CEOs’ credibility and reputation. Stéphane is fluent in French and English and conversant in Mandarin.

Ernst den Hartigh is an Associate with CS&A based in Louisiana, USA, providing clients world-wide with crisis management and emergency response advice. Prior to joining CS&A, Ernst had a distinguished career in the oil and gas business as senior business leader in a variety of global locations. Through extensive operational line-leadership experience, he has had significant hands-on exposure to emergency and crisis management and will be able to provide clients with fit-for-purpose advice and guidance.

For the first twenty-seven years of his career, Ernst worked in various operational and management roles for Shell in the North Sea, Middle East, Far East and Gulf of Mexico. His experience covers both onshore and offshore operations, and he possesses deep expertise in managing technical and business risk, operations management, process safety and safety leadership. Immediately after Hurricane Katrina (2005) he was the crisis manager for recovery efforts of the Shell upstream organization in Louisiana.

He also initiated the global direction for Asset Integrity Management in Shell Upstream following BP’s Texas City incident, including the development of standards for all Shell operated assets.

The last six years, he worked for BG Group in the US and North Sea, most recently as Managing Director for BG Europe E&P, being ultimately responsible for business results, safety performance and reputation.

He holds a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

André Benoît is an Associate of CS&A based in Montreal, Canada. He has over 25 years of experience in the Americas, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, holding senior expatriate roles within large global CPG companies in the tobacco and food industries, active in the fields of public affairs, government relations, global strategic communications, and reputation & crisis management in high-pressure, rapidly changing business environments.

André began his professional career in 1986 as a Foreign Service Officer with the then Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (now Global Affairs Canada). He was posted as Trade Commissioner to the Soviet Union (1987-1990) and the United States (1990-1992). Upon returning to Canada in 1992, he became Executive Director of the Canada-Russia Business Council, a private sector trade association, in Toronto.

He joined the private sector in 1994 and relocated to Russia to build and lead a new Corporate Affairs function for a major US-based tobacco company, following its acquisition of the Petro cigarette factory in St. Petersburg. In 1999, he transferred to the company’s worldwide headquarters in Geneva, and was responsible for the management of Youth Smoking Prevention and Cigarette Taxation programs around the world.

In 2002, André took on regional responsibilities as Vice President, Corporate Affairs, CIS & Baltics, Turkey, Romania, Middle East and Africa, as well as Worldwide Duty Free. In 2007, he relocated to Toronto to head up the Corporate Affairs & Communications functions for the Americas region, until late 2009. In 2011, André joined a global US-based packaged food corporation as Senior Director, Corporate & Government Affairs for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, first in Vienna and then in Dubai, until November 2016.

André holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the University of Montréal, as well as a Certificate in Advanced Social Media from the University of San Francisco. He was Member of the Board of the Washington-based International Tax & Investment Center from 1999 to 2009, and then again from 2012 to 2016. André is fluent in French, English and Spanish, and conversant in Russian.

Effectively managing risks and issues is key to crisis anticipation, detection and prevention. CS&A helps clients manage this process through assessments and the development of risk matrices, risk and issues registers and mitigating strategies and action plans. This also includes Market Intelligence, Stakeholder Mapping, Scenario Planning and other CS&A bespoke tools designed to help clients assess business impact and risk preparedness. For more details on CS&A’s services in risk and issues management, click HERE to get in touch.

CS&A’s deep expertise in crisis management spans over 25 years working with clients across industry sectors internationally. From crisis preparedness audits, assessments and benchmarking, to the development of bespoke crisis procedures and plans to customised training, desktop and simulation exercises, CS&A helps clients enhance their crisis preparedness and resilience. Learning from real crises and exercises is a key component of the crisis management capability improvement process. CS&A’s tried and tested case-study methodology helps clients capture and share lessons learned throughout their organisation to help ensure the same mistakes never happen again. For more details on CS&A’s services in crisis management, click HERE to get in touch.

CS&A’s emergency response experts have helped clients in the optimization of their facilities, processes and competencies. From emergency personnel assessments, to the development of emergency management procedures, training and testing exercises, CS&A’s emergency response services include: control room and installation audits, self-assessment models, emergency communication planning, process and control room simulator training, mustering and evacuation procedures, telephone response and family assistance, scenario design, escalation drills and much more. For more details on CS&A’s services in emergency response management, click HERE to get in touch.

Business Continuity Management (BCM) has become an integral part of organizations’ resilience capability and is closely linked to Risk and Crisis Management. As an early and active advocate of integrated Business Contingency Planning, CS&A helps clients develop business continuity strategies and tests them. CS&A’s alliance with INONI offers clients a unique business impact analysis and business continuity plan management platform. Fully customisable to client organisations, the tool is closely aligned with ISO 22301, the International Standard for Business Continuity, and builds an integrated whole life-cycle management system. CS&A is a member of the Business Continuity Institute and abides by its standards of best practice in business continuity management. For more details on CS&A’s services in business continuity management, click HERE to get in touch.

Competent crisis teams are at the heart of any organisation’s effective crisis readiness. Over the past two decades, CS&A has developed a number of result-focused training and coaching methodologies that help enhance clients’ competencies in risk, crisis and business continuity management. This includes crisis leadership, issues and stakeholder management, scenario planning, reputation management, emergency management, After Action Reviews (AAR) and family assistance among others. In addition, CS&A has extensive experience designing and conducting customized communication, spokesperson and media training programmes at the executive level. For more details on CS&A’s training programmes, click HERE to get in touch.

A life-jacket must be periodically tried and tested to work when needed. Likewise crisis plans must be practiced and validated regularly to fulfil their objectives. Practicing and testing crisis preparedness is an essential component of effective crisis management planning and a sound business practice. From desktop exercises to large-scale multi-locations crisis simulations, CS&A’s expertise in the design, organisation and facilitation of crisis exercises is recognised throughout the industry. Since its founding, CS&A has designed over 200 customized scenarios across industry sectors. Our in-depth research, meticulous preparation and professional facilitation, provide clients with an authentic, dynamic and challenging practice and testing experience. CS&A’s use of secure web-enabled simulations platforms (Crisiscom© – ICONSnet) during exercises allows multiple teams to “play” from their own environment in different locations, practice internal and external stakeholder engagements and role-play social media and media communication “safely”. For more details on CS&A’s exercise programs, click HERE to get in touch.

Professional audits are part and parcel of any risk and crisis management compliance programme. Professional external auditors provide organisations with a necessary objective eye. Whether working with our clients’ audit systems or applying our very own CrisisScan©, CS&A’s expert auditors in risk, safety, emergency, crisis and business continuity management will collaborate with your team to deliver effective audits that generate qualitative and quantitative data for compliance and improvement catalogues. Knowing where your organisation stands in terms of crisis preparedness is the starting point to enhancing crisis resilience. CS&A auditors deliver audits globally across industries in twelve different languages. For more information on CS&A’s auditing services, click HERE to get in touch.

When facing escalating issues or acute adversity, having access to external expertise can be a valuable resource. CS&A’s high calibre team is available to clients for ad/hoc and/or regular consulting on risk, crisis and business continuity preparedness and management. Individual phone consultation and coaching as well as on-call services can be arranged to support clients in the pre-during and post crisis phases. For more information on CS&A’s consulting services, click HERE to get in touch.

Need some quick advice on an emerging crisis or your crisis preparedness initiatives, CS&A’s experts are available to assist you. Please contact us HERE.

Can you enhance your ability to pre-empt, prevent, mitigate and recover from any adverse situation?

The ICONS Project, the training arm of the University of Maryland Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM), offers professional-level and executive training programs that incorporate multi-player, real-time simulation exercises. Initially developed for and applied to the academic and public sectors, CS&A is collaborating with ICONS to deliver simulations to the business and corporate environment. Combining CS&A’s hands-on practical risk and crisis management expertise with CIDCM’s academic insight, the ICONS simulation approach is ideally suited to help organizations practice the pre and post crisis phases as well as uncover opportunities to turn potentially negative situations into positive outcomes. The ICONS online tool is designed to address the potential escalation emerging from a risk or an issue as well as the lingering and long-term impacts of a crisis. As such, ICONS helps enhance crisis anticipation and prevention as well as mitigation and recovery. With the ICONS Tool you can broaden your perspective by taking into account stakeholder behaviour and as a result enhance your overall stakeholder management capability, manage issues and risks more proactively and improve your scenario planning skills. So, would you like to be ahead of the game?

For more information or a demo, please click HERE to get in touch.

Visit the ICONS Project© website.

Like CrisisScan©, ReputationScout© starts from one-on-one in-depth interviews, which query pre-selected managers and employees on: Their knowledge of company policies, processes and procedures in reputation management

Their understanding of and competency level in reputation management.

The results are represented in percentages of the desired optimal situation and in spider-grams, for the team as a whole as well as for individuals. The results and their graphic representation provide clients with: A clear picture of their strengths and weaknesses in reputation management

A detailed account of the management’s knowledge and understanding of the company’s policies, processes and procedures

A reputation management competency profile for each management member.

The possibility to measure progress through benchmarking

We recognises and appreciate that different organizations/industries approach reputation management in different ways. Therefore, ReputationScout©‘s contents can be adapted to the particular needs of the organization. CS&A work with client organizations to ensure specific needs are met and bring best practice to their attention. CS&A’s ReputationScout© is the only truly reputation management assessment tool available. It enables you to set and measure your capability against your own targets, to create a benchmark and apply uniform standards to all your operations. ReputationScout© is based on internationally accepted standards of best practice. For more information, please click HERE to get in touch.

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