Towhey to present research at world disaster conference

Jan. 7, 2007

TORONTO – Mark Towhey, founder and president of TOWHEY Consulting Group Inc., an international management consulting firm specializing in integrated issues, risk and crisis leadership has accepted an invitation to speak at the 17th Annual World Conference on Disaster Management in July, 2007.  He will present early findings from an ongoing research program evaluating the use of leading edge psychometric assessment instruments to select high quality crisis leaders.

“Even after they’ve done all the necessary pre-planning, many clients still find it difficult to select the right people for crisis leadership roles” says Towhey.  “Often the obvious choices become less obvious when the realities of multiple factors are considered.”

For example, the most knowledgeable operations executive in a business may travel 50 per cent of the time with her job – meaning there’s a 50-50 chance she will be off site when a crisis erupts.  Another well-qualified candidate may have a young family and a dependent spouse – in a major disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane, his top priority may be ensuring the safety of his family and not protecting the profitability of your business.

“Last, but not least,” says Towhey, “some people are really well suited to crisis leadership roles – and others simply aren’t”

Towhey has been using leading-edge, validated psychometric assessment tools to help executives better understand themselves and, thereby, improve their on-the-job performance and to develop highly successful teambuilding interventions.  Because of the nature, design and academic rigor underlying one particular tool, it has also proven very effective in selection applications.

With this in mind, TOWHEY Consulting Group is leading a research effort to determine how useful such instruments can be to help chief executives select individuals for crisis leadership roles and to improve overall team performance of crisis management teams.  The study will commence in January 2006 with initial findings to be presented in July at the 17th Annual World Conference on Disaster Management.

TOWHEY Consulting Group Inc. is an international management consulting firm specializing in integrated issues, risk + crisis leadership.  With teams based in Toronto and Miami, it regularly works with the some of the world’s largest and smallest high performance organizations, helping them become stronger and more resilient to major crisis.

For more information on the conference and this session, check out these links: