Instructors

Lisa Benini has been a practitioner in Business Continuity Management, Risk Management and Emergency Management since 1991. She achieved her CBCP in 1998, and her MBCP in 2010.  She has provided internal and external consulting expertise to a wide range of public and private organizations, and has her own consulting company since 2000.

Lisa is truly driven to make a difference in helping companies prepared for any disruptive events.  Lisa is also very passionate about teaching the best practices in business continuity and has been a certified instructor for DRI Canada since 2002.  She is actively involved with the community with respect to preparedness and provides workshops to special interest groups and associations.  Lisa is also a representative on the Technical Committee for Canadian Standard Association (CSA) Z1600 Standard for Emergency and Continuity Management Program.  Lisa is a board member of Emergency Preparedness for Industry and Commerce Council (EPICC) and has been instrumental in coordinating an annual 1-day seminar in Victoria, BC, Canada since 2004.

Suzanne Berier A former journalist and government press secretary, Suzanne is now an international, multi-certified, award-winning crisis management consultant, trainer, speaker, and author.  She has helped governments, communities and companies plan for, respond to, and recover from disasters for almost 30 years. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for RIE Toronto, and serves as Global Ambassador for Stars of HOPE USA and as an advocate for mass attack survivors.

Suzanne has had numerous career highlights that include being a guest speaker at The White House, developing and delivering the first Pandemic Tabletop Exercise and Action Plan for the United Nations Headquarters (New York), receiving BCI’s Continuity & Resilience Consultant of the Year – North America, and of course, authoring the critically-acclaimed book, Disaster Heroes.  She is also a current faculty member of DRI International, acting as their international crisis communications instructor.

Building on a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto and 10 years' experience in Information Systems, Graeme decided in 1986 to specialize in business continuity and information security.  Since that time, he has consulted and taught in Canada, United States, Europe and the Middle East for companies large and small.  Mr. Jannaway is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP); Honorary Fellow of the Business Continuity Institute ((Hon) FBCI), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA - retired); Member, CSA Z1600 Emergency Management / Business Continuity Planning Technical Committee; Past Member, NFPA 1600 Technical Committee on Emergency Management and Business Continuity; and a Member of the Canadian Delegation to the ISO/TC 292 on the same topic.  He has been interviewed by the CBC, featured in Report on Business and is listed in Whos Who in Canada.

M. Pesant is a Certified Business Continuity Professional and a DRI International Certified instructor.  He has delivered high quality trainings for DRI CANADA for many years and he's a dynamic speaker.

Recognized has an expert in Business Continuity Management and especially in Crisis Management, DRP (Disaster Recovery Planning) and IT Recovery Coordination, Mr. Pesant has been involved in many different industries such as Banking, Insurances, Investments, Engineering, Manufacturing and Governments. He helped many organizations to develop, implement and evaluate Business Continuity Management Program and Disaster Recovery plans. He managed and evaluated multiple exercises.

He also holds a Change Management Practitioner and Foundation certificates on IT Services Management v2 and v3 (based on ITIL best practices).

Finally, he has successfully managed corporate recoveries following disasters.

Randy is a Certified Business Continuity Professional with over twenty years industry experience. He is the Founder and Managing Director of Resilience Continuity Solutions (RCS),  a boutique business continuity and emergency management consulting practice.  Prior to RCS, he was the North American Business Continuity & Emergency Response leader at a global integrated facility and real estate management firm.

Randy has developed many Business Continuity Programs including corporate plans for Canadian and US multi-nationals, Infectious Disease Plans, Crisis Communication Plans as well as BCP’s for financial institutions, utilities, large communication companies, oil & gas, logistics, healthcare, critical environments and government. He has successfully led numerous BCP activations and full-scale response & recovery operations at major disasters and business interruptions across Canada.

Randy brings 14 years teaching and developing BCP & Emergency Management curriculum at various higher education institutions.  He currently is teaching distance education courses at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) - Disaster & Emergency Management Program.  He also is a sessional Instructor at Cape Breton University, Fleming College and Loyalist College.

Academically, he hold a Master of Arts. He has served on DRI Canada Certification Commission and is currently serving on the Board of Directors for Bladder Cancer Canada.  Randy resides in Trent Hills, Ontario.

Tara is a Certified Business Continuity Professional and a DRI International Certified instructor. She is also an instructor and course developer at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) - Disaster & Emergency Management Program.

Tara is an accomplished business continuity professional with over 25 years experience in business continuity, crisis management, risk management, internal audit, project management and consulting. Her career spans over several industries including municipalities, government agencies, non profit, post-secondary education, health care, oil and gas, manufacturing, indigenous communities and technology. 

As an independent consultant and expert in her field, Tara has led many business continuity program developments, including assessments of existing capabilities, followed by fit for purpose program delivery that is aligned with each organization‘s objectives and priorities. As the president of DRIE West Chapter since 2014, Tara has had the opportunity to help shape and promote business continuity initiatives and awareness

Ann Wyganowski is a Certified Business Continuity Professional with years of Program and Project Management experience over a wide range of industries and business functions. She has successfully implemented large scale, holistic business continuity programs and managed BCP activation during major business disruptions resulting in no lost revenues and thank you's from my clients' customers. Ann is Interested in new challenges in developing program plans or implementing BCP or disaster recovery plans. Her specialties include managing teams of people to develop, enhance, redesign and implement new business processes, business continuity plans, and business applications with particular emphasis on program and project management, new procedures, business analysis, development, roll outs, conversions, disaster recovery planning, training, documentation, retiring old procedures and applications.