Our team

Rick is a leading authority in organisational resilience and strategic risk mitigation and is a founding partner of resilience and crisis specialists ResilienC. With over 20 years’ experience as a Partner at Deloitte and KPMG, he was also Chair of the British Standards Institution Technical Committee for Continuity and Resilience, where he has been influential in the development of British and International Standards in the field.  He is a visiting professor at King’s College London and visiting fellow at Cranfield University School of Management. He was a contributor and co-editor of the National Preparedness Commission’s report: Resilience Reimagined: A Practical Guide for Organisations.

Visit Rick’s LinkedIn profile here.

Simon Godfrey is a technology industry veteran and longtime UK Government expert. He brings a wealth of experience in technology, public policy and business change, having worked with and advised some of the UK’s most well-known public and private organisations. Simon has worked across many sectors, alongside powerful change-agents on critical business challenges, and he will be using this wealth of experience to help inform and shape Resilience First’s work.

Pietro is a C-level Executive and Board Director with 30+ years in Professional Services and TICCCC (Testing, Inspection, Certification, Compliance, Consultancy, Calibration), leading global businesses in their sustainable and profitable growth.

Founder & CEO of TrueStone Advisors Ltd, he provides senior advisory to Private Equity, Professional Services firms, and Standards Development Organisations. Recognised as an expert in innovation, resilience, sustainability, compliance, and standardisation, he is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and universities. In 2023, he was named “Collaborative Leader of the Year” by the Institute for Collaborative Working. He is also a member of CoM, the Cercle d’outre-Manche, an international think-tank for the promotion of best practices for prosperity, growth and employment, and contributes to TIUK, the Association of Talented Italians in the UK.

His executive career includes senior leadership at BSI, where he led the global Assurance Services Division of 3,000+ professionals and spearheaded BSI’s thought leadership on Organisational Resilience. At Bureau Veritas, he was Group Director of Strategy and later held multiple top management positions. Earlier, he was a Partner at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman). He began his career as a Project Engineer at Brown & Root Vickers (now KBR).

An Italian, French, and British citizen, he holds a Mechanical Engineering degree, an MBA from Bocconi and HEC, and the Financial Times Diploma for Non-Executive Directors.

Richard Threlfall is an independent consultant specialising in infrastructure and sustainability. He is Chair of Engineers Against Poverty, a Fellow and Former Vice President of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a Trustee of Future-Fit Foundation. Prior to his retirement as a KPMG Partner in September 2025 he was Global Head of Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare. From 2020 to 2022 he was Global Head of KPMG IMPACT and launched the firm’s Global ESG Strategy.

Richard began his career as a civil servant. Between 1996 and 1998 he was Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Transport and the Deputy Prime Minister. He subsequently moved to the Infrastructure Advisory team at Citigroup before joining KPMG.

Richard’s overriding focus is the future of our planet and society. His website, richardthrelfall.org, carries his writing and films which seek to raise awareness on climate change and other issues of environmental and societal sustainability, and encourage action to enable a better future for everyone, everywhere.

Seth Schultz, former Chief Executive of Resilience Rising, has a long track record of building consensus and initiating change in the field of sustainable development, and of raising international awareness on the role of cities in tackling climate change.

With over 20 years of experience, Seth’s background is as a geologist and environmental scientist. Driven by the need to create change in urban sustainability he has worked with leading and innovative organizations in this space including the Louis Berger Group, the US Green Building Council, the Clinton Foundation, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, the Global Covenant of Mayors, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where he was Co-Chair of the Scientific Steering Committee for Cities IPCC and served as a lead author on the ground breaking IPCC Special Report on 1.5 Degrees.

His recent work has focused on turning theory to practice, whether developing a global standard for Greenhouse Gas Emissions in cities, founding new organizations such as The Coalition for Urban Transitions, or a hard-hitting report on Mayoral powers and the ability and need for city leaders to become global change makers.

Seth sits on various boards and advisory councils, is a sought-after speaker and guest lecturer, and has authored numerous articles, reports, blogs and thought leadership pieces around the world. He has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Binghamton University.

Visit Seth’s LinkedIn profile here.

Theo previously worked as a Campaign Manager at Resilience Rising. Prior to this he worked for the Resilience Shift.

He has a background in campaigns and coalition building where he has worked at the national and sub-national level across Europe, North America and Africa within the private and public sector.

In 2021 he was seconded from the Resilience Shift to the UN Climate Champions team to coordinate the Race to Resilience campaign and establish the Resilience Hub at COP26, the first-time resilience has had a permanent home at a COP.

His professional and personal interests include mobilising non-state actors to understand and build resilience to the impacts of climate change and expanding opportunities for young people to participate in policy making and advocacy.

He holds a first-class degree in International Relations and is slowly improving at Spanish.

Laura leads communications and marketing at Resilience First, developing a programme of activities that engage and grow the organisation’s membership base. She also delivers the London Business Networks for Resilience (LBNR), an initiative supported by London Resilience to strengthen the preparedness and resilience of London’s business community. In this role, she oversees the programme end-to-end—from designing and curating its activities to expanding the network, driving engagement and building strong relationships across sectors and boroughs.

Working closely with business networks, Laura supports the identification of key risks and strengthens preparedness for emergencies and disruptions. By equipping members with the knowledge, resources and tools they need, she plays a pivotal role in advancing a whole-of-society approach to resilience across London.

Before joining Resilience First, Laura built a career in communications, delivering impactful and often award-winning campaigns across digital and traditional channels in multiple countries. Her multilingual and international background enables her to navigate diverse professional cultures and foster effective collaboration.

Originally from Venice, Italy, Laura holds master’s degrees in Languages, Economic & Legal Institutions of East Asia from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and in Advertising: Art Direction & Copywriting from the European Institute of Design.

Swaraj is a recent graduate from King’s College London, with a Master’s degree in International Relations. He is also a freelance journalist, who has written several articles for geopolitical publications. He has a keen interest in current affairs, especially in topics that merge the business and political worlds.