Edgewood Insights

President and Founder Chloe Demrovsky was interviewed on BBC News Business Daily for a special report on the lingering impact of the Baltimore bridge collapse. A highlight from our discussion: "the supply chain is the invisible web that makes modern life possible...It is the everyday miracle that underpins the modern economy." It's been two months since the collapse of the key bridge in Baltimore, and the deadline to unblock the port's shipping channel is imminent. The US government has given a loose promise to make it happen by the end of May - but there are doubts that the deadline will be met, causing more disruption to the local and global economy. How will businesses on sea and land find a way through more uncertainty? Chloe spoke with Izzy Greenfield about the economic toll of the bridge collapse and particularly the small businesses who are feeling the impact; from fewer customers to disruption to supply chains. Baltimore used to rank first among US ports for autos and light trucks, handling a record 850,000 vehicles last year. Importantly, the port is where vehicles are processed and labelled to be sold domestically. We hear how the industry is seeing an immediate impact. And we learn about the struggles that transportation workers continue to face. Direct link to the episode: https://lnkd.in/eGuiG__b Link to our blog post: https://lnkd.in/e5PjCyZW

In a segment picked up by many news outlets, I joined Scripps News over the weekend to discuss the outlook for the remainder of hurricane season. Stretched thin in a year marred by flood disasters, severe weather events, tornado outbreaks and historic wildfires, the nation’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is being pushed to its financial limits, facing a shortfall in disaster relief funds. More is needed to protect the nation. And nice to be featured alongside William "Craig" F., as always. Watch the video segment here: https://lnkd.in/eSEFNUhs Read the accompanying article here: https://lnkd.in/eDbKxVpb

🙏 I was quoted in The Guardian in Mary Cunningham’s thoughtful piece on small business resilience. As the #climatecrisis causes heavier and more frequent floods across the US, one in four small businesses are one disaster away from shutting down. Experts, advocates and business owners said local governments can help small businesses by investing in #infrastructure upgrades for things like sewage, drainage and water catchment systems; funding flood prevention and #resilience programs; and requiring greater transparency on flood history. Grateful to see this important topic get some coverage. Thanks to Jeff Schlegelmilch for facilitating the introduction. Read the full story here:

📣 My latest article for Forbes: The world is in perpetual crisis. One incident builds on another before we have recovered from the one that came before. To survive in #polycrisis mode, organizations are looking for new solutions to help them manage threats and respond appropriately. I wondered whether implementing improved artificial intelligence (#AI) capabilities as part of strategic #digitaltransformation could help businesses to thrive in this new reality. If so, how are leading organizations experimenting with them to improve their #crisismanagement capabilities and build #operationalresilience? And what does 🦞 have to do with any of it? Read the article and find out: https://lnkd.in/ePp8UYh4 This piece features the research of Brian Spisak, PhD, who I previously collaborated with on a research project assessing #leadership lessons from Covid-19. Thanks also to lyndon bird and Eric McNulty who spearheaded that research (https://lnkd.in/dFz65xY2). There's even a mention in the article of National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI)'s useful POP-DOC Loop framework for building situational awareness. I welcome your feedback and insights in the comments.👇

🙏Thanks to Resilience Think Tank and Mark Hoffman, CBCP, MBCI for having me on the podcast to discuss what's new with the resilience industry and what I've been up to recently. It was a fun and wide-ranging conversation. Have a listen at the link below. 👇

📣 Really delighted to join and to have helped shape this upcoming panel of colleagues across #risk, #resilience and #sustainability including Marie Clara B. Head of Sustainable Finance for the Americas at Societe Generale, 🌍Hervé Duteil Chief Sustainability Officer, Americas, BNP Paribas, and Deborah Nitka Senior Manager, Cyber & Tech Risk, CohnReznick LLP and facilitated by the insightful Heather Loebner of Hallo Impact. 🌎 In today’s volatile world, headlines about infrastructure failures, pandemics, labor challenges, climate change, and data breaches remind us of the critical need for robust business preparedness, risk management and disaster recovery planning. These disruptions can threaten the ability of companies to deliver services, goods, and profits, reshaping how we view and act on corporate resilience. What is the intersection of Corporate Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)? How are leading enterprises moving beyond siloed approaches to create cohesive, resilient programs, leveraging data and partnerships, to avoid common pitfalls? 🤝 We will be hosted by Sustainability Investment Leadership Council (SILC) and at the offices of CohnReznick LLP. 💡 Register today: https://lnkd.in/g8wRfGwR

📣 Really delighted to join and to have helped shape this upcoming panel of colleagues across #risk, #resilience and #sustainability including Marie Clara B. Head of Sustainable Finance for the Americas at Societe Generale, 🌍Hervé Duteil Chief Sustainability Officer, Americas, BNP Paribas, and Deborah Nitka Senior Manager, Cyber & Tech Risk, CohnReznick LLP and facilitated by the insightful Heather Loebner of Hallo Impact. 🌎 In today’s volatile world, headlines about infrastructure failures, pandemics, labor challenges, climate change, and data breaches remind us of the critical need for robust business preparedness, risk management and disaster recovery planning. These disruptions can threaten the ability of companies to deliver services, goods, and profits, reshaping how we view and act on corporate resilience. What is the intersection of Corporate Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)? How are leading enterprises moving beyond siloed approaches to create cohesive, resilient programs, leveraging data and partnerships, to avoid common pitfalls? 🤝 We will be hosted by Sustainability Investment Leadership Council (SILC) and at the offices of CohnReznick LLP. 💡 Register today: https://lnkd.in/g8wRfGwR

💡Strategic foresight is such a valuable tool in helping decision makers build awareness of larger issues in the macro environment as well as to model out and work through potential outcomes. This kind of active learning is essential for engaging adult learners and ensuring that teams really retain the lessons learned. 🇺🇸 That's why it was so enlightening to participate in FEMA's Strategic Foresight 2050 workshop at FEMA Headquarters together with national, state, local, tribal, territorial and private sector leaders from around the nation. 🏙 In my assigned team, we specifically worked through the Fragmented Futures scenario, which painted the following bleak picture: The U.S. is experiencing slow economic growth and rising inequality while communities are increasingly battered by climate-related disasters. Poverty, crime, and civil unrest plague communities around the country, and tensions between haves and have nots undermine social cohesion and trust in government. Due to an abrupt drop in federal revenue, Congress passes austerity budgets that exacerbate the challenges faced by the Nation’s most vulnerable populations, and resource constraints limit the ability of governments to respond effectively to emerging threats. Nevertheless, more affuent segments of society and innovation-driven businesses manage to thrive although the growing dependence on technology creates new vulnerabilities as well as opportunities. 🤖 Some particularly fascinating conversations evolved around the impact of #AI and robotics-enabled, driverless #supplychains and whether manual workarounds would even be possible in an inequitable future in which much of the blue-collar labor force has been made redundant. What impact would that have on #resilience and what role would #emergencymanagement leaders play? 🔍 The #StrategicForesight 2050 Toolkit helps emergency managers integrate future-thinking into their organizations. The toolkit contains information on programming a strategic foresight initiative as well as guidance for leveraging the research products, workshop materials and approaches used at FEMA. 📄 The good news? You can download and use all the materials right here: https://lnkd.in/g3kJwTaj #bringthefutureforward #preparedness

Founded in 2024, Edgewood Insights is a strategic advisory firm driving impact at the nexus of risk, resilience and sustainability. Bring the future forward.