Chris Needham-Bennett MSc MBCI
Chris founded Needhams 1834 Ltd in 1996 and today is regarded as one of the leading Business Continuity consultants in the market. A highly effective communicator, he has led many major national and international projects, often in the glare of media scrutiny.
Chris specialises in:
- Business Continuity strategy
- Crisis Management training
- Design and delivery of exercises
Over the past 12 years he has advised, trained and exercised numerous executive teams from leading public companies and various government departments.
Prior to founding Needhams, Chris served for 10 years in the British Army and worked in the UK and overseas in the private security industry.
Chris is a Member of the Business Continuity Institute, holds an MSc from the University of Leicester and is qualified by the British Psychological Society to conduct Psychometric testing.
Richard FitzHugh BSc (Hons)
Richard has 14 years of project management and broad experience in information technology, medical and communications fields.
Richard specialises in:
- Risk and point of failure analysis
- Exercising and awareness campaigns
- Technological support for crisis management and business continuity
Richard primarily works with clients in medical, legal, charity and government sectors – specialising in risk analysis and mitigation strategies. Richard prepares, plans and facilitates exercises for organisations looking to fine tune their planning and crisis control processes, as well as facilitating training sessions for organisations looking to prosecute their own in-house exercises and awareness campaigns.
In addition to a wealth of experience and qualifications in biomedical, information technology and security fields, Richard holds a Business Continuity Institute Certificate (Merit), and is the Needhams lead for supporting technologies and standards including ISO27K and BS25777.
Giles Alexander BSc (Hons)
Giles has 12 years of risk and project management experience in a number of leadership and team roles and is currently in the closing stages of a Masters in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management.
Giles specialises in:
- End-to-end Business Continuity Management development (All aspects of the BCM Lifecycle)
- Crisis Management Team training and exercising
- Business Continuity gap analysis, review and audit work
Since joining Needhams in 2007, Giles has undertaken BCP projects working in partnership with clients in the public and private sectors to develop new or existing plans, processes and arrangements to build organizational resilience - Increasingly to significant alignment or to achieve certification to BS 25999 (British Standard for Business Continuity Management). He has designed and facilitated Crisis Management Team and Multi-agency training and exercises, leads on the Needhams BS 25999 and Desktop Exercise training courses and has facilitated Business Continuity workshops at conference events.
Prior to joining Needhams in 2007, Giles gained experience in the financial sector with a leading Wall Street Bank and previously served as a Royal Marines Officer. Giles holds a PgDip in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management, a BSc (Hons) and is a qualified PRINCE 2 Project Manager and BSi trained BS25999 Lead Auditor.
Phil Russell MBE BSc (Hons)
Phil has 20 years of risk management experience in leadership roles in the commercial, not-for-profit and diplomatic sectors in the UK and in challenging overseas environments.
Phil specialises in:
- End to end Business Continuity development (all aspects of the BCM lifecycle)
- Crisis Management Team training and exercises
- Non Government Organisation (NGO) global risk and business continuity management
Phil joined Needhams in June 2010 after spending 5 years as Director of Disaster Operations in an international NGO where he led delivery of major relief interventions in Bangladesh, Burma, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand and risk reduction programmes aimed at protecting rural livelihoods and food security throughout Asia and Latin America.
Previously, Phil worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office leading high profile conflict resolution missions in Palestine and South Sudan (2002 – 2004) during which time he operated out of remote camps in guerrilla-held territory for 2 years.
Phil also served as an officer in the Parachute Regiment and was awarded an MBE in 1996 for military service in Southern Africa.
Dr Katherine Devitt PhD, MSc, BA (Joint Hons)
Katherine is a senior lecturer at Southampton Solent University, specialising in leadership, crew resource management and bridge resource management in the maritime sector. Her doctoral research focused on effective strategic leadership in multi-agency major incident response teams, and her model of interwoven leadership has recently been published in a prestigious peer reviewed journal (Devitt, K. R. and E. P. Borodzicz (2008). "Interwoven Leadership: the Missing Link in Multi-Agency Major Incident Response." Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 16(4): 208-216)
She has extensive strategic and operational human factors experience gained at a senior level within several industries as well as the public sector.
Katherine specialises in:
- Selection of Crisis Management personnel
- Analysis of Crisis Management Team dynamics and effective operation
- Effective leadership in crisis situations
- Human factors in Business Continuity planning
Since joining Needhams in 2004, Katherine has worked with a number of clients in addressing human factors issues, including planning for staff and stakeholder support in the aftermath of an incident, and stress recognition and management. She has also developed and delivered a range of Crisis Management courses.
Katherine is a practising business psychologist and executive coach, a certificated NLP practitioner and counseller, and is qualified in business performance coaching as well as a wide range of psychometrics to British Psychological Society intermediate level B standard.
She holds a BA (Joint Hons) in Law and Politics from the University of Keele, an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from the University of London, and a PhD from the University of Portsmouth Business School.
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