About Brendan Monahan
Brendan Monahan believes organizations should be able to meet the unfamiliar without losing their judgment, purpose, or potential. His work is about building the confidence, shared purpose, and decision-making capacity people need when reality no longer resembles the plan—so they can protect what matters and emerge stronger.
In practice
Brendan is a crisis management and organizational resilience executive and the author ofStrategic Corporate Crisis Management: Building an Unconquerable Organization(Routledge, 2022). His 20-year career spans homeland security intelligence, critical infrastructure, and pharmaceuticals.
Since 2018, he has led crisis management and business continuity for the U.S. operations of a global pharmaceutical company, supporting roughly 16,000 associates and directing its U.S. response to COVID-19. Earlier, he built enterprise crisis management and business continuity programs at two major critical infrastructure companies. At one of those companies, he helped lead its response to Superstorm Sandy and served as its Security Incident Commander during Super Bowl XLVIII. He began his career at a state fusion center, leading analytical teams and briefing senior officials as major threat events unfolded.
Why I wrote the book
I wrote this book because the standard playbook kept treating crisis work as a document problem: write a better plan, tighten the hierarchy, wait for the call. That model failed the moment reality got messy. The organizations that hold together treat readiness as a capability their people carry, so when the plan runs out they can still decide and act. This book makes that case.
Credentials & roles
- MBCI: Member, Business Continuity Institute
- CBCP: Certified Business Continuity Professional
- Two-time Chair, ASIS International Crisis Management & Business Continuity Steering Committee
- Editorial board, Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning
- FEMA Vanguard Executive Crisis Leaders Fellowship (2024)
- Founding member & former chair, New York Analyst Roundtable
- Boston College (BA); Queen’s University Belfast (MA)
Selected writing
- Confronting wicked problems and creeping crises: Integrated crisis management(Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2025)
Views expressed here are my own and independent of my employer.
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