Ep. 30: Emerge stronger - Key insights from the GCCR Summit 2025

In our latest episode, our Global Centre for Crisis and Resilience co-leaders Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles and Dave Stainback kick off our new GCCR Summit series and explore key insights from the recent GCCR Summit in Amsterdam. Upcoming episodes will feature various leaders from across the globe to dive deeper into tech & cyber resilience, operational resilience, regulations landscape, as well as the role of technology and AI in resilience.

Transcript

David Stainback: Hello everyone and welcome to the Emerge Stronger Through Disruption podcast series. I'm Dave Stainback, co-leader of PwC’s Global Centre for Crisis and Resilience, or GCCR for short. And I'm coming to you from our office in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm also joined by Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles, my GCCR co-leader based in London.

Great to be with you as always, Bobbie.

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles: Thanks Dave. And hi everyone. Really happy to be here today. Now, as you all know, the aim of this podcast series is to explore the challenges facing businesses in this environment of constant crisis and change, and also to discuss how successful business leaders can emerge stronger through disruption.

So what's on our agenda today, Dave?

David Stainback: Yeah. Today we're diving into the key takeaways from the recent GCCR summit that we hosted in Amsterdam. So this episode marks the beginning of what we're gonna call the GCCR Summit Series, where we'll focus on major topics that we discussed at the event as a team.

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles: Brilliant. I'm really excited about this campaign We're starting, as we all know, particularly with our colleagues who joined for the Summit, it was a really great success and I'm really excited that we can bring to all our listeners the insights that we gathered at that particular event. So in the following episodes, we are gonna cover some really interesting topics such as technology and cyber resilience, but also operational resilience, and importantly the regulatory landscape that we're all operating in, but also importantly, how does technology and AI play into resilience as well as part of this Summit series? First let's you and I just set the stage some highlights from the Summit for our listeners today.

David Stainback: Yeah, that sounds great, Bobbie. So our Global Summit brought together over 65 partners and directors from around 25 countries across the PwC network who work in the crisis and resilience space and represent over 1,500 team members around the world at PwC.

And although we always work closely virtually, this event was a really special opportunity to gather everyone in one room and to really collaborate and share the latest thinking around resilience and crisis management over a three day period.

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles: It really was fantastic. I think just given the breadth of the various topics we covered in both crisis and resilience.

I think it not only got alignment across the whole team, but also it was an opportunity to share the latest thinking and the insights from working with companies across the globe, which for me was really invaluable. A few things that come to my mind actually, in terms of sort of key highlights, I'd say firstly.

Just recognising the value of our network, being truly global in crisis management and resilience for our clients. Organisations we work with are global in nature, and therefore we can actually provide a seamless experience in working with PwC wherever they need us in the world, but also secondly, the importance of resilience in today’s rapidly in changing environment and actually how PwC’s view of enterprise resilience and our framework can actually help organisations build resilience, not just to survive this really quite tricky era of disruption, but also to thrive and get that competitive advantage as well.

We also, of course, deep dived into resilience and focused on how can we help companies actually build it practically.

So whether that's the work we do around critical business services or indeed helping companies navigate through the waves of new resilience regulations coming. And then lastly, as I mentioned before, the role of technology and AI in enhancing resilience functions at our client organisations. I think these tools are really crucial for helping organisations anticipate, prepare for, and respond to disruption.

So that was just some of the highlights, but hopefully gives our listeners a bit of a flavor, the topics that we're gonna focus on in the upcoming series.

David Stainback: I think that's a great summary. Bobbie, you wrapped up three days in, you know, 45 seconds there, so well done.

I think what's important to highlight, and you touched on it, is that just like major organisations today are globally structured, so are we, that's what I came out of this with. Um, and because we're global, it enables us to offer support consistently at scale around the world, and our GCCR network is well equipped to deliver our mission statement, which is to help organisations across industries and geographies to prepare for, respond to and emerge stronger through crisis, and to build resilience for what's next.

Now that we've shared some highlights from the summit, Bobbie, why don't we give our listeners a sneak peek of the upcoming podcasts that we're gonna highlight through the special GCCR Summit series?

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles: Yeah, sure. Dave. I think we're really excited to dig deeper into the episodes ahead and bring in the experts who led some of the key discussions we had back in Amsterdam at the Summit. Now, the order of the episodes may vary, but if we start with the topics that our listeners are gonna cover.

David Stainback: So first up, we're gonna be covering tech, cyber, and data resilience with our colleagues, Dan Chaprut and Shawn Lonergan.

They're gonna talk about the importance of tech, cyber, and data resilience, and how organisations can strengthen their defenses and leverage technology to anticipate and respond to disruptive events more effectively. These gentlemen spend time deep within companies mapping technology dependencies, developing disaster recovery plans, prioritising recovery capabilities, and doing real world testing to make sure that it works.

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles: Brilliant. And next after that, we're gonna focus on operational resilience featuring Moira Cronin from Ireland and Mark Barboza from Canada. And what they're gonna do is share practical insights into building resilient operations to withstand disruption, specifically really diving into the operational resilience approach that PwC uses to help companies with their resilience programs top down within an organisation.

David Stainback: Great. And then we're gonna explore the regulatory landscape with Jane He from Australia and Sandrine Mottin from the US. And given how quickly resilience regulations are shifting globally, this episode is gonna help our listeners to understand what frameworks and governance structures they can put in place to stay compliant and prepared regardless of what regulations you may face today, or in the future.

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles: And last but certainly not least, our episode on technology and AI resilience, which is gonna be presented by Oliver Sykes from the Middle East firm, and James Houston from the UK. So Oliver and James are gonna cover how AI technologies are reshaping resilience capabilities, but also what it means for the future of crisis management and response.

David Stainback: And I'm just really excited that our listeners are gonna be able to look forward to practical strategies and just the expert viewpoints of our colleagues in each of these different episodes. So whether you're tackling cyber threats or operational complexities, regulatory challenges, or leveraging AI and trying to figure out how it fits into the resilience space, I think there's gonna be something for everyone.

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles: Yeah, I agree Dave. I think that sets hopefully the stage perfectly for our listeners and we would love for you to listen to all of them as they, I think they genuinely will be really interesting and relevant topics for all those in the crisis and resilient space. Alternatively, do feel free to capture ones that are most relevant to you.

David Stainback: Absolutely, and thanks to everybody for tuning in today. The GCCR Summit was really an incredible event and I'm just so happy that we're gonna be able to share the key takeaways with our listeners through the GCCR Summit series.

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles: Agreed. Dave, I think that's a great place to wrap up for today. It was brilliant to take the opportunity to actually take a step back and reflect on the various topics we covered at the recent Summit.

David Stainback: Thanks Bobbie. We encourage you to subscribe to Emerge Stronger Through Disruption wherever you get your podcasts. And please connect with us on LinkedIn or through our website with your ideas for future topics. Until next time, stay resilient and prepared for whatever challenges come your way.

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