Databarracks bolsters business continuity leadership with appointment of Richard Bale

Senior appointment demonstrates commitment to helping organisations improve their business and IT resilience.

Databarracks has announced that it is further strengthening its business continuity and resiliency expertise, with the appointment of Richard Bale, former Head of Business Resiliency for Europe, Middle East and Africa, at J.P. Morgan, to the position of Business Continuity and Resiliency Principal.

Richard is one of the pioneering practitioners of business continuity, with over 30 years of experience both as an external consultant and internal resiliency manager and will be helping further define and deliver the Databarracks Business Continuity as a Service offering.

He started his career with London Transport and in 1987, led the recovery of 30 bus garages following the London Hurricane. Following this Richard went on to open of one of London's first ever business recovery centres in the early 1990s. For the last twenty years, Richard has been working at senior management level within two major wholesale banks. At BNP Paribas, he was the Head of Business Continuity Management UK, and Service Continuity Management, France and UK. At J.P. Morgan, he was the corporate & investment bank's regional Head of Business Resiliency for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Richard has also been an influential figure in the development and maturation of the industry. He is a member of the Business Continuity Institute and was a founder member and former Co-Chair, of Securities Industries Business Continuity Management Group Ltd (SIBCMG). SIBCMG represents the business continuity interests of the major UK wholesale banking institutions, and has been instrumental in the development of professional good practice in the UK, including Market Wide Exercises.

The appointment of Richard reinforces Databarracks' growing presence and expertise in business continuity services. Last year, (July 2017) the company announced that Mike Osborne, former Managing Director of Business Continuity, Cloud & Hosting at Daisy Group, had joined Databarracks as its first ever Executive Chairman. As part of his new role, Richard, will work directly with Mike and managing director, Peter Groucutt, to continue growing the business and enhancing its existing products and services.

Richard commented on his appointment: "Having been involved with the evolution of business continuity for many years, there is an argument to say that some have rather lost sight of the original purpose – to enable organisations to either avoid, or recover quickly, from disruptive events. We now have weighty international standards, with extensive glossaries, to explain what are essentially straight forward ideas – plan for the effect of an incident, rather than its cause, and test regularly to ensure familiarity. I'm delighted that both Mike and Peter share this view and have asked me to join the them at Databarracks. The company is growing from strength to strength and I'm excited to part of its future."

Executive Chairman, Mike Osborne also commented: "Richard joins us with a fabulous wealth of knowledge and insight to help us to develop our Business Continuity as a Service offering. Business Continuity has become too complex and is seen as too expensive by many. We are taking the expertise, understanding and process implemented in large organisations by the very best practitioners, but delivering it 'as a service' in a way that works and is affordable for small and medium sized businesses. Continued IT failures, the ever-present cyber threat and high risk of terrorism mean the need for improved IT resilience and wider business continuity plans has never been so high. This appointment is such a tremendous coup for us and for our customers, helping them to better their business continuity and disaster recovery plans, to become truly resilient."

ENDS

About Databarracks:
Databarracks is the UK's specialist business continuity and IT disaster recovery provider.

We deliver ultra-secure, award winning data and continuity services from UK-based, ex-military data centres.
Databarracks is a member of the Business Continuity Institute, and has been named a "Niche Player" in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for DRaaS.
www.databarracks.com

Contact:
Nick Bird/Tim Barutcu
Spreckley Partners Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 207 388 9988
Email: databarrackspr@spreckley.co.uk