Ep. 146: Toby Kent - Reflections from Australia's First Chief Resilience Officer

The All Things Risk Podcast

As we’ve either learned or have been reminded in 2020, the world is filled with uncertainty. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if more of us, and more of our institutions and ways of living embedded more resilience - ways to withstand and even thrive in the midst of stressors and shocks? Has any of this been done before?

Well, here’s some good news – it has, at least in a few places. One of those places is Melbourne, Australia, one of the world’s most liveable cities and a city that has received positive press coverage for the way it has handled the Covid-19 pandemic. Our guest today has had something to do with that. He has been described as “the man helping to future-proof Melbourne”. Meet Toby Kent.

Toby was Melbourne’s Chief Resilience Officer, a position appointed under the Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Resilient Cities Initiative. In this role, Toby created and delivered Australia’s first urban resilience strategy, Resilient Melbourne, a collection of Melbourne’s 32 councils, State, private and non-profit organisations, And, as part of that strategy, Toby warned – back in 2015 – that a pandemic was among the 20 things that could threaten Melbourne.

So, we obviously get into that and talk about some of the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic. We also get into a number of broader areas as well including the environment, climate change, mental health, anti-fragility, and community resilience. Toby has an extensive background in sustainability and resilience and I am sure that you will enjoy this conversation.

Show notes:

Toby’s website

Toby on Twitter

Toby on LinkedIn

Resilient Melbourne

“ Meet the Man Helping to Future-proof Melbourne” – article in The Age

Jane Jacobs

The Rockefeller Foundation

Deepwater Horizon

Social Capital and Disaster Recovery by Daniel Aldrich

Antifragile by Nassim Taleb

City Limits, the Grattan Institute

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Like what you heard?

Subscribe and/or leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/1PjLmK

Subscribe on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/all-things-risk/the-all-things-risk-podcast

Subscribe on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ben-cattaneo

Follow the podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RiskThings

Drop us a note: [e-mail]

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Our free course module “How to Set Up Any Decision for Success” from our upcoming course How to Make Decisions With Calm and Confidence