Risk and Disaster Reduction Careers Discovery Evening

Caroline has been working with the British Red Cross based in London since 2016, supporting Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies around the world and the International Federation of the Red Cross Red Crescent with programmes, guidance and training in the area of disaster risk reduction as well as anticipatory action. Before joining the Red Cross, Caroline was based in Asia for 10 years and worked as programme manager with Plan International, UNDP and the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI). Caroline is a German national and studied International Relations at the University of Southern California (B.A.) and European studies at the Westphalian University of Muenster and University Twente (M.A & MSc.). 

Will has been at Horizonscan since 2015. He holds an MBA, is a Chartered Manager, and Member of the Business Continuity Institute. As Managing Director, Will is responsible for Strategy, Finance and Business Development.

Horizonscan is a growing team of Business Continuity, Resilience and Crisis Management experts and practitioners who focus on building long-term partnerships with businesses to increase their ability to deal with disruptive events.

As a vice president and the managing director of Verisk’s Extreme Event Solutions team in London, Shane Latchman is involved in many of Verisk’s extreme event models and Touchstone initiatives, such as the integration of third-party data and models, expanding Verisk’s capabilities in marine and energy, climate change quantification, and the Next Generation Financial Module. He interacts frequently with rating agencies and regulators on topics such as stress tests, climate change, and the Solvency II directive on EU insurance regulation. 

Shane joined Verisk after receiving his master’s degree in 2008. Shane sits on and collaborates with various industry working groups, committees, and boards, including Bank of England, Open Data Standards, Insurance Development Forum, and Cass Business School. He writes and speaks frequently on topics related to catastrophe risk and climate change.

Hari completed a BSc in Disaster Management at Coventry University and now has over eight years' experience in public sector emergency preparedness and business continuity having joined Guy's and St Thomas' one year ago from Croydon Council. Since working in health EPRR she has been involved in many incidents and events from bomb threats to heating breakdowns, Operation London Bridge to a 9-week IT outage. Also a qualified change management practitioner, Hari enjoys the preparedness aspect of the role most, working for continuous improvement of the organisation's resilience. 

Anne Barber is a Catastrophe Risk Analyst at JBA Risk Management and previously worked as a Operational Meteorologist at the Met Office.

Kirsty Johnson graduated from the Risk, Disaster and Resilience MSc in 2020 and has been working in the civil service since. She now heads up national risk assessment work (Head of Assessment) in the Cabinet Office.

Josh Williams is Assistant Director for Strategy and Planning in the COBR Unit, overseeing horizon scanning for emerging acute risks, and coordinate reporting across government. He graduated from the University of Birmingham and secured a place on the fast stream, initially working on court reform followed by crisis management in the Cabinet Office. Before his current role, he worked on operational planning for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and worked on the response for the "Lying-in-State Queue" for the death of HM the Queen. 

The COBR Unit is the UK Government's central response team in the Cabinet Office. COBR Unit works with Departments and their sectors to identify emerging acute domestic risks to the UK, develop contingency plans, and lead the Government's response when risks materialise. 

The UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction offers MSc, MRes, PGDip, PGCert and PhD programmes in:

• Risk and Disaster Reduction
• Risk Disaster and Resilience
• Risk and Disaster Science

Details of these programmes can be found on our graduate study webpages.

Further information on all of our courses will be available at our recruitment stall, along with the chance to ask questions of our academic staff and current students

Horizonscan is a growing team of Business Continuity, Resilience and Crisis Management experts and practitioners who focus on building long-term partnerships with businesses to increase their ability to deal with disruptive events. Their consultants and associates bring real world experience ranging from careers in the emergency services to corporate security management.

Horizonscan is an employee-owned business, which gives them more freedom and flexibility to tailor their services to meet the needs of their clients. It also ensures their consultants bring with them the pride and motivation of business ownership. The team are committed to making sure every engagement is successful and mutually beneficial.

Horizonscan's mission is to help make organisations more resilient and all their client work is set up to be sustainable with a focus on developing long term relationships with their clients.

Verisk provides risk modeling solutions that make individuals, businesses, and society more resilient to extreme events.

At Verisk you can build an exciting career with meaningful work; create positive and lasting impact on business; and find the support, coaching, and training you need to advance your career. We have received the Great Place to Work® Certification for the fifth consecutive year. We’ve been recognized by Forbes as a World’s Best Employer and a Best Employer for Women, testaments to our culture of engagement and the value we place on an inclusive and diverse workforce. Verisk’s Statement on Racial Equity and Diversity supports our commitment to these values and affecting positive and lasting change in the communities where we live and work.

The British Red Cross helps people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. We are part of a global voluntary network, responding to conflicts, natural disasters and individual emergencies. We help vulnerable people in the UK and abroad prepare for, withstand and recover from emergencies in their own communities.  The Red Cross Red Crescent Movement is the largest  humanitarian organization globally, recognized through the Geneva Conventions as auxiliary to public authorities.

UCL Careers Consultant Dave Carter, who works with students in departments across the MAPS Faculty, will be available to answer questions on how the UCL Careers Service can support students in making the most of their UCL PG degree to advance on their chosen career path 

The Afghanistan and Central Asian Association works with Afghans and Central Asians living away from their homeland, providing them with support, skills and knowledge to live and prosper in the UK.

Their services include English language classes, employment workshops, a women’s support group, a Saturday school and homework club, youth and family support services, drop-in and telephone advice, volunteer placements, and cultural and social events. They provide outreach and visits to individuals and families in detention.

They also work in Afghanistan, where they are developing citizens advice centres in Kabul and Pul-e-Khumri, which will offer free, impartial and confidential advice, information, support and legal aid on issues including education, employment and domestic violence.

JBA Risk Management specialises in modelling flood risk to support clients in the insurance, reinsurance and international development sectors. They use flood maps, catastrophe models and tools to analyse risk to assets, infrastructure and people, now and under future climate scenarios. They are constantly innovating to solve client problems and we value collaboration with our clients and partners.

Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK's leading providers of hospital and community-based healthcare, research and education. They have 5 main hospitals – Guy's Hospital, St Thomas' Hospital, Evelina London Children's Hospital, Royal Brompton Hospital and Harefield Hospital, and also provide community services in Lambeth and Southwark. 

The NHS needs to plan for, and respond to, a wide range of incidents and emergencies that could affect health or patient care. These could be anything from extreme weather conditions to an outbreak of an infectious disease or a major transport accident. The Civil Contingencies Act (2004) requires NHS organisations, and providers of NHS-funded services, to show that they can deal with such incidents while maintaining services. This programme of work is referred to in the health community as emergency preparedness, resilience and response (EPRR), and the Trust's EPRR Team is represented at the event. 

Also joined by London Region NHS Emergency Preparedness Response and Resilience Team. They plan for and respond to a wide range of incidents across the city, as well as supporting NHS Trusts with their EPRR work programmes, training, exercising and assurance processes. 

Sameer is a civil engineer and planner, pursuing an MSc in Infrastructure Planning, Appraisal, and Development at the Bartlett. With over a decade of experience in disaster risk reduction, response, and recovery, he has engaged with variety of international, multilateral, national and local organizations in these fields. Since 2018, as a UNDRR consultant, he supported the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), India to conceptualise, design and operationalise the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI). Previously, he served as a trainer and public health and shelter engineer in humanitarian responses for organisations like UNICEF, PLAN, and RedR across India, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Daniel has been working at the UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) since 2015, as Senior Emergencies Specialist, leading UNICEF’s emergency activation in the UK across communications, fundraising and advocacy. As part of this role Daniel oversees high risk travel, advises on international safeguarding, and supports UK deployments to emergency response for UNICEF. Before joining UNICEF Daniel was Senior DRR Adviser at Save the Children, based for a number of years across London, Copenhagen, Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Manila. In this role he led the meaningful participation of children and communities in risk assessment and resilience building, with local authorities and partner organisations. Daniel began his DRR career in the DRM Unit at Plan International (UK). He has a MSc from the Bartlett in Spatial Planning, and a MSc from the London School of Economics in International Relations. His undergrad was in Philosophy, from the Universities of Lancaster and Helsinki. Daniel is also co-chair of the inclusion and diversity committee at UNICEF UK.

Rebekah is a humanitarian responder and researcher, with a growing knowledge of and interest in search and rescue. Research interest are mainly: inclusive (early) warning systems and evacuation decision making, emergency and temporary shelter and housing, and microinsurance as a support tool for low-income populations and a force for good! 

She loves flying, aeroplanes and helicopters, with a hope to combine aviation with emergency response/humanitarian efforts. 

David is a Catastrophe Modeling Analyst specialised in Latin America & the Caribbean at Guy Carpenter. Guy Carpenter & Company, LLC is a leading global risk and reinsurance specialist that delivers broking expertise, trusted strategic advisory services and industry-leading analytics (actuarial and catastrophe modeling) to help clients adapt to emerging opportunities and achieve profitable growth. Together with reinsurance brokers and actuaries, they intermediate between their clients (insurers) and reinsurers to facilitate the risk transfer process. Within this, David's role involves earthquake and hurricane risk estimation using RMS and AIR models. If you are interested in cat modeling as a profession, or just the (re)insurance industry, speak to David. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkerschbaum/ 

Jacob Vriens is an Associate Consultant in the Resilience practice of Marsh Advisory. With a background in Risk and Disaster Reduction, he delivers business continuity, organizational resilience, crisis management and security projects. 

Jacob joined Marsh in 2023 from the Austrian Mission to the United Nations, where he covered the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, UN COVID-19 business continuity measures, and the Black Sea Grain deal. 

Before that, he worked with the CyberPeace Institute in Geneva to reduce the harm of cyber-attacks on under resourced NGOs. Besides Jacob’s academic expertise in Risk and Disaster Reduction, he also brings unique research skills from his work in investigative due diligence (OSINT) for large institutional investors.

Tabea is the Managing Editor of Alert, the ICPEM’s accessible journal for practitioners and decision makers in civil protection and emergency management. The ICPEM is the oldest learned charitable society for disaster risk reduction. As an independent collaborating forum, we are dedicated to achieving better outcomes in disasters and emergencies for people, their property and livelihoods, economies, and the environment. We unite professional practitioners and academics to provide an informed and influential voice to influence, shape and educate policymakers, professionals, academics, and the public. www.linkedin.com/in/drr-tabea-zimmermann