Richard Bale BC and Resiliency Principal, Databarracks

Databarracks, Ltd appointed Richard Bale, former head of business resiliency for EMEA, at J.P. Morgan, to the position of BC and resiliency principal.

 
He is one of the pioneering practitioners of BC, with over 30 years of experience both as an external consultant and internal resiliency manager and will be helping further define and deliver the Databarracks BC as a service offering.
 
He started his career with London Transport and in 1987, led the recovery of 30 bus garages following the London Hurricane. Following this he went on to open one of London’s first ever business recovery centres in the early 1990s. For the last twenty years, he has been working at senior management level within two wholesale banks. At BNP Paribas, he was the head of BC management UK, and Service Continuity Management, France and UK. At J.P. Morgan, he was the corporate and investment bank’s regional head of business resiliency for EMEA.
 
He has also been an influential figure in the development and maturation of the industry. He is a member of the BC Institute and was a founder member and former co-chair, Securities Industries BC Management Group Ltd (SIBCMG) that represents the BC interests of the major UK wholesale banking institutions, and has been instrumental in the development of professional good practice in the UK, including market wide exercises.
 
His appointment reinforces Databarracks’ presence and expertise in BC services. Last year, (July 2017) the company announced that Mike Osborne, former MD of BC, cloud and hosting at Daisy Group, joined as its first ever executive chairman. As part of his new role, Bale will work directly with Osborne and MD Peter Groucutt, to continue growing the business and enhancing its existing products and services.
 
Bale commented on his appointment: “Having been involved with the evolution of BC for many years, there is an argument to say that some have rather lost sight of the original purpose – to enable organisations to either avoid, or recover quickly, from disruptive events. We now have weighty international standards, with extensive glossaries, to explain what are essentially straight forward ideas – plan for the effect of an incident, rather than its cause, and test regularly to ensure familiarity. I’m delighted that both Mike and Peter share this view and have asked me to join them at Databarracks. The company is growing from strength to strength and I’m excited to be part of its future.”
 
Executive chairman Mike Osborne also commented: “Richard joins us with a fabulous wealth of knowledge and insight to help us to develop our BC as a Service offering. BC has become too complex and is seen as too expensive by many. We are taking the expertise, understanding and process implemented in large organisations by the very best practitioners, but delivering it ‘as a service’ in a way that works and is affordable for small and medium sized businesses. Continued IT failures, the ever-present cyber threat and high risk of terrorism mean the need for improved IT resilience and wider BC plans has never been so high. This appointment is such a tremendous coup for us and for our customers, helping them to better their BC and DR plans, to become truly resilient.”