About me

Over the past two decades I’ve worked in disruption contexts ranging from war zones and complex emergencies overseas to frontline emergency response in Australia.

Much of my work has been shaped by the growing reality of climate disruption and the need for organisations and communities to adapt deliberately rather than react repeatedly. At the same time, I remain engaged with the broader pressures reshaping institutions — technological acceleration, geopolitical volatility and psychosocial risk.

Across these domains, the question that continues to guide my work is simple:

How do we live, adapt and lead responsibly amid sustained disruption?

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  • I treat resilience as capability, built deliberately over time - consistency over intensity.

    In practice, resilience depends on three foundations working together:

    • Leadership: strategic and systems-thinking, effective presence, judgement under pressure, decision-making under uncertainty, adaptable, human-centred, clear prioritisation and communication.

    • Relationships: coordination, trust, shared situational awareness, and the human dynamics that allow teams to act as one system.

    • Systems: strategy, institutional design and governance that integrate foresight, risk and decision architecture across organisations and sustain performance under extended strain.

    This is where systems thinking and strategic foresight become practical tools. They help organisations map dependencies, anticipate second-order effects, and prepare for cascading disruption rather than single events. These approaches also shape my writing and public speaking on how we live and lead amid structural disruption.

    In practice, disruption often reveals structural weaknesses that routine operations conceal. When handled well,those moments become inflection points for learning and deliberate adaptation rather than decline.

  • My understanding of disruption has been shaped in environments where systems fracture and people still have to act.

    For 15 years, I worked as an international aid worker in war zones and disaster contexts, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Yemen, North Korea, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and many more. Those settings taught me that resilience rarely fails because people lack commitment or intelligence. It fails when leadership loses clarity under pressure, when relationships don’t carry trust and shared situational awareness, and when systems can’t support fast, coordinated action.

    Later, as a firefighter with Fire and Rescue NSW and CEO of Plan C, I saw similar dynamics play out in Australian emergencies: time pressure, incomplete information, competing priorities, fatigue, and the need for disciplined coordination. In those moments, leadership becomes practical. Psychosocial hazards — uncertainty, burnout, role overload and fractured trust — are often central to how disruption unfolds. Calm judgement, clear prioritisation and communication can determine whether a team functions as a system or fragments into reactivity.

    Alongside this field experience, my work has been shaped by academic and analytical training. I’m a former university lecturer and researcher, with a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics. That background sharpened how I see disruption: as a systems phenomenon shaped by “unknown unknowns”, institutions, narratives, and cascading risk. It also deepened my interest in strategic foresight and futures thinking as a systematic way to anticipate emerging pressures, explore scenarios, and strengthen readiness for uncertainty.

    Much of my work continues to be shaped by the growing reality of climate disruption and the need for organisations and communities to adapt deliberately rather than react repeatedly.

    This experience is the foundation of my work today.

  • I am the CEO of Safer Future, a for-purpose consulting firm supporting organisations to build crisis-ready capability for disruption. Our work strengthens leadership, coordination and systems readiness across the full cycle of disruption, with a focus on both human dynamics and practical execution. We have supported businesses, governmental agencies, local governments, universities, primary health networks and more.

    I am also the founder and Chair of Plan C (“our plan is the community”), a registered charity focused on strengthening community resilience and civic capability. Through Plan C, I have supported the design and delivery of multiple resilience-building initiatives, including the Community Carers and Responders (CCR) network, Surviving Disasters, a youth-focused resilience building program, and Facing Up — a series of trauma-informed conversations exploring how communities live and act amid sustained disruption.

  • I am the recipient of the Australian National Emergency Medal and two NSW Premier Citations for my work during the 2019–2020 bushfires and the 2022-2023 floods, and was a finalist for the 2024 Lismore Shire Citizen of the Year award.

    I am a former university lecturer and researcher. I hold a PhD from the London School of Economics and a Master’s Degree from Sciences Po Paris.

    Professor Clive Hamilton wrote in Living Hot: Surviving and Thriving on a Heating Planet (2024): “as adaptation expert Jean Renouf observed, Australians can learn to live well on a warming planet.”

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  • I’m an avid mindfulness practitioner, nature-lover, and father of two young boys.

    My guiding principle “Stillness in action” refers to remaining calm, focused, and grounded while actively engaging in dynamic or high-pressure situations. It is also about cultivating the ability to live intentionally in today’s age of structural disruptions.