As a young professional, Amanda B. Nolan, who is a management consultant with The Kavi Group, is still taking advice and learning from others. She credits her mentor, Chris Green, who introduced her to the business continuity profession and provided her with on-the-job training, for helping create a solid foundation of knowledge.
Nolan began her undergraduate education in liberal arts with the thought of becoming a teacher. She then pursued a master’s degree in public health with a focus on health education. While in graduate school Nolan needed an extra class to fill a communication requirement and ended up taking crisis communications. She was fascinated by the subject and thrilled to learn that emergency management could be a potential career path. Two fulfilling emergency management internships and a practicum defense paper later, Nolan was hooked. Soon after, Nolan took a business continuity position and has never looked back.
“While business continuity wasn’t in my plan, I feel so lucky that I’ve found this profession. Every day I have the opportunity to interact with people, explore multiple areas of the business, and do investigative work to figure out what’s in place and how to make the business more resilient.”
Now that Nolan has experience implementing, developing, and managing a business continuity program, she takes the management cycle in stride. “I have to remind myself that business continuity is never really finished. While it’s essential to meet milestones, there’s always an opportunity to mature, dig deeper, and further integrate business continuity within the business.”
Nolan also has some advice for college students who are considering pursuing a career in business continuity. “Business continuity is an extremely rewarding profession that allows you the ability to interact with people at all organizational levels and explore parts of a business that you may have never even heard of,” she said. “There will be times when you have to be extremely creative, investigative, and occasionally persistent, but it’s worth it. Not to mention, the business continuity profession is extremely close-knit, so if you ever really hit a roadblock, there is a community of people who are willing to help and offer advice.”
Nolan plans to continue her education by becoming a BCI lead auditor and hopes to attend a DRJ conference.
