Risk + Safety + Security + Sciences

This episode explores how traditional risk matrices can hide critical ignorance and why assessing the strength of our knowledge matters. Through real-world cases — an offshore Heimdall leak, pandemic vaccine decisions, and the University of Stavanger's reforms — listeners learn the NUSAP pedigree method, radar diagrams, and the concept of critical slowing down to spot failing assumptions before disaster strikes.

This episode unpacks two highly classified corporate travel-risk briefings covering the same seven-day window in late September–early October 2026. Hosts trace how multinational security teams monitor and mitigate overlapping crises—from mass protests and election lockdowns to hurricanes, floods, and landslides—so executives can move safely.Through concrete examples (Pakistan road closures and 2G throttles, Haiti’s UN mandate deadline, measles and Ebola travel bans, China’s exit bans, clean-device policies, and environmental hazards like Singapore’s haze), the episode shows how biological, digital, legal, and logistical risks are actively managed—and asks who ultimately bears responsibility for a traveler’s safety: the state or the employer.

This episode digs into scenario planning and why expensive future-prediction methods often fail or mislead. It explains the three types of uncertainty, the three rival schools of scenario methods (intuitive storytelling, French structural analysis, and probabilistic modelling), and newer hybrids like cognitive fuzzy maps.
You’ll learn the key psychological effects—how scenarios reduce overconfidence but can introduce narrative-driven biases like the conjunction fallacy—and practical recommendations: recruit dissenting views, stress-test assumptions, anchor scenarios in human needs, and build strategies that survive many possible futures.

This episode explores the rise of the Chief Resilience Officer, why organisations are creating the role, and why it often struggles in practice.
Using classic organisational theory, the hosts show how resilience requires cross-functional integration, clear decision rights, and political capital—otherwise the role risks being symbolic rather than effective.

This episode examines a worrying trend in Australia where legal teams are taking charge of cyber incident responses, prioritising legal privilege and liability management over urgent technical containment. It traces how the "privilege playbook" emerged after major breaches, slowed information sharing with government defenders, and prompted legal and parliamentary pushback.
The discussion highlights the danger of mixing legal and risk functions, the inadequacy of generic risk frameworks against adaptive adversaries, and the lack of verifiable security credentials at board level. It concludes with practical recommendations: separate legal and technical assessments, ensure independent risk ownership, and require named security professionals with verifiable threat-relevant qualifications.

This episode reveals how interconnected geopolitical conflict, sudden bureaucratic decrees, and cascading infrastructure failures are reshaping global travel. From Strait of Hormuz disruptions that spike jet fuel prices and force airlines to cancel routes, to unannounced exit bans and curfews that trap passengers in airports, the podcast connects the dots on modern travel fragility.
It also outlines a concise playbook for executives and travel managers: protect digital devices and data, build logistical redundancy, avoid diplomatic perimeters, and halt travel to high-risk zones like Haiti. The episode shows that seamless global movement can no longer be assumed and urges organisations to adapt.

Executives warn that traditional risk management is failing as the world shifts to structural volatility. This episode examines the World Economic Forum's white paper 'Risk Management Reimagined: Outlook to 2035' and explains why organisations must move from prediction to preparedness.
Topics include interconnected cascading risks, the rise of real-time sensing and digital risk twins, the evolving role of Chief Risk Officers, assumption auditing, and the imperative to combine AI scale with human judgment to build resilient strategies for the next decade.

This episode unpacks the UN Global Risks Report 2026, revealing how 1,300 experts now see large‑scale war as an imminent threat and how everyday policy choices can trigger cascading crises.We explain the vulnerability gap in global institutions, the rising dangers from AI and disinformation, and how climate inaction acts as a hidden driver—using a backcasting approach to show the chains of cause and effect and what listeners should watch for in future headlines.

This episode examines how executive security in 2026 has shifted from physical guards to digital protection, expanding beyond CEOs to the broader C-suite through data removal, home network monitoring, and mandated private travel.It reviews recent Harvard Law School Forum findings, the rise in security spending patterns, the use of private aircraft, and the governance challenges facing boards and shareholders.

This episode examines how routine committee meetings can amplify initial biases—driving groups toward more extreme decisions through mechanisms like group polarisation, shared-information bias, and social calibration.
It also presents three zero-cost structural fixes you can apply immediately: collect private written positions before discussion, explicitly solicit unshared information from domain experts, and record the initial range of views in the minutes to preserve honest deliberation.