Renae Hanvin

Renae Hanvin's Biography

A sought-after and engaging presenter, Renae Hanvin is helping organisations and government get ahead of future disasters by empowering people and communities. Renae speaks about creating disaster resilience, building corporate and community connections, the power of stakeholder engagement, and how to establish strategic partnerships.

After the worst bushfires in living memory and a crippling global pandemic, Renae is challenging people to ‘think differently’ and ‘do differently’ in the before, during and after stages of all types of disasters.

Founder of certified social enterprise corporate2community, Renae is committed to building resilient businesses, helping communities thrive, and leading collaborations. Focused on protecting people, reputation and profits, she works with organisations of every size, type, industry and location.

Renae is also the founder of the Resilient Australia Alliance, leading a national focus to get business communities ready for the bad times, while bringing benefits in the good times too.

Recently winning Federal and State government grants worth more than $1million, Renae is now piloting innovative business community projects in bushfire areas across NSW to build capabilities where they are needed the most.

Renae also chairs the South Gippsland Shire Council Visitor Economy Advisory Group, sharing her expertise across policy, strategic and framework alignment and stakeholder engagement.

Knowledgeable and relatable, Renae hosts the ‘Doing Disasters Differently’ podcast, regularly speaks at industry events and has been published internationally.

Renae is available for in person and virtual events.

Speaking Topics Include

Understanding the disaster landscape

The disaster landscape is complex. Our federation-style government model, notion of shared (but not equal) responsibility and reactive approach makes it near impossible to understand. Using everyday language, Renae helps inform audiences across all organisations on the role they can play and where to stay away. Given the new era of more frequent, more destructive and compound disasters, Renae provides value in sharing her knowledge and experience of all stages of the disaster lifecycle – before, during and after impacts such as bushfires, floods, storms, cyber-attacks and pandemics.

Let them know you’ll be there

When disasters strike people seek leaders. At work, at home, in communities and government. Renae will show how every person in the room is a leader. And at times of crisis, how leadership can be the biggest asset to your people, reputation and profits. Providing case examples of global corporates who went from almost bankrupt to the number #1 brand in the midst of a disaster, Renae shares basic steps organisations can take to build trusted networks with internal and external communities. Steps that evolve their everyday culture and embeds resilience as an everyday norm.

Don’t Let Disaster Goodwill Ruin Your Reputation

When disasters strike it’s natural to want to help. And during the 2019/2020 bushfires, individuals and communities demonstrated unprecedented levels of goodwill giving in cash, goods and services and volunteering. But how much of that goodwill was helpful, and how much put communities in the red. Presenting global trends and local examples, Renae demonstrates how helpful goodwill is a two-way equation, and ineffective goodwill can set profits and reputations plummeting. Introducing her ‘token is broken’ solution, you’ll learn her 10-step approach to corporate disaster giving.

Resilient Ready, Together

If your approach to disasters sits in a business continuity plan owned by a silo team member, it won’t help you thrive. Sharing her Resilient Readyä methodology, Renae will introduce the 4P approach where Prevent, Prepare, Promote and Protect sets a new, holistic, multi-stakeholder culture to getting ahead of disasters. With resilience the new vital business capability, Renae will demonstrate why everyday business as usual preparedness and resilience is essential (and achievable) for sustainable success.