James is an all-round business generalist with a Master's degree in Business Administration and 20 years commercial experience who has worked in the risk management industry since 1995. He specializes in designing, developing, implementing and maintaining Business Continuity and Information Security Management systems for clients in the public and private sectors. Integrating the two disciplines now forms a large part of his current work-in-progress and continues to provide the focus for much of his individual research effort.

James has excellent communications skills, at all levels of management, and possesses a natural flair for presenting complex business issues concisely. He has worked for a number of high profile clients in the following sectors/industries: defence, finance, legal, local government and housing, food distribution, transport and internet banking.

Highlights of James' experience is summarised as follows:

- International Experience: Over 25 years (ongoing) contingency planning experience in multi-national environments: Northern Ireland, Germany, Berlin, USA, Egypt, Hungary, Poland and Canada. As a serving senior member of the Territorial Army he is currently a Deputy Commander of the largest Regional Brigade in the British Army. Among his responsibilities in this role is acting as a special advisor to the Civil Contingencies Reaction Force in North East England.

- Information Management: Between 1999 - 2002 he commanded the UK's only Territorial Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment trained in, and responsible for, the acquisition, collation and dissemination of information across the "spectrum of conflict" from high intensity to peace support operations. His current thoughts in linking information security with continuity planning and incident management is backed by solid experience and regular training in demanding envionments.

- Business Continuity Planning: 8 years commercial Business Continuity and Information Security experience within his own consultancy practice. This includes: Extensive experience of all aspects of Information Security and Business Continuity; Developing IT Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans; Developing Information Security Management systems; Conducting Business Impact Analyses and Risk Assessments; Conducting training courses: specifically educating and training Senior Management in decision making techniques for major incident management;

- Exercises: He is particularly skilled in developing and facilitating client continuity exercises which highlight the nature of the "asymmetric threat" landscape. Scenarios in 2002-03 include: Fire, Flood, Chemical attack, Terrorist and suicide Bomb, IT failure, Premises denial, Loss of critical information and key personnel.

- Institutes: James is an assessed Member of the Business Continuity Institute and Chair of the Information Security and BS 7799 special interest group for Survive - The Business Continuity Group; and an advisor to, and point of contact for, the Institute of Directors (North East) to the Government Office for the North East.

- Continuous Professional Development: James is a regular speaker on incident management and continuity planning and in his spare time, he is studying for his second Master's Degree in Risk and Security Management at the Centre for Hazard and Risk Management, Loughborough University.