What is the Baltic Resilience Hub?
The ISM Baltic Resilience Hub connects business, government, academia and civil society to strengthen business resilience across the Baltic region.
Baltic businesses face a challenge to identify and understand geopolitical threats and take proportionate and practical action to prepare for, withstand and recover from any resulting disruption. The Hub helps organisations close that gap through research, practical guidance, education, training and exercises.
Our work supports the EU’s whole-of-society approach to resilience: businesses, public institutions and communities each have a role in maintaining essential services, protecting people and supporting recovery.
Our core functions
Gather
Bring businesses, government, academia and resilience professionals together to share knowledge, experience and solutions.
Inform
Translate EU, NATO, government and regulatory requirements, alongside international best practice, into practical business guidance.
Represent
Bring the needs, concerns and experience of businesses into dialogue with government, regulators and other relevant institutions.
Develop
Educate, train and exercise organisations and individuals to strengthen their ability to anticipate, withstand and recover from disruption.
Research
Conduct and support applied research, turning evidence and lessons learned into practical recommendations.
Research themes
Our research themes focus on generating practical insights for Baltic businesses and government organisations, while sharing lessons from the region’s unique circumstances with the wider world. They include:
- Geopolitical threats and business resilience: We examine how geopolitical developments and hybrid threats affect Baltic businesses, their people, operations and supply chains.
- Crisis leadership and decision-making: We explore how leaders prepare for disruption, make timely decisions with incomplete information and coordinate effective responses under pressure.
- Business continuity and recovery: We investigate how organisations identify essential activities and dependencies, maintain priority services and adapt their operations during prolonged disruption.
- Whole-of-society resilience: We study how businesses, government, academia and civil society can strengthen cooperation, share information and coordinate preparedness and recovery.
- Measuring and testing preparedness: We examine business perceptions of risk, assess resilience capabilities and use exercises and wargaming to identify vulnerabilities and lessons for improvement.
Events and activities
The Hub creates opportunities to learn, exchange experience and put preparedness into practice through:
- Events: Briefings, discussions and forums connecting business leaders, public institutions, researchers and resilience professionals.
- Webinars: Accessible briefings and discussions on emerging threats, preparedness and lessons learned.
- Courses: Education on crisis leadership, business continuity and organisational resilience.
- Consulting: Practical support to identify vulnerabilities, strengthen plans and develop resilience capabilities.
- Research: Applied studies that inform business decisions and contribute to wider resilience policy and practice.
- Wargaming and exercises: Facilitated scenarios that test decisions, reveal dependencies and strengthen coordination within and between organisations.
Our values
Practical and actionable
We provide clear, realistic actions that organisations can implement.
Responsive
We respond to stakeholders’ needs promptly and deliver timely support without compromising quality.
Robust
Our research, advice and training are rigorous, carefully considered and designed to stand up under real-world pressure.
Accessible
We support organisations of all sizes, making high-quality resilience expertise available to smaller businesses as well as major corporations and public institutions.
Forward-looking
- We identify emerging threats and help organisations prepare before disruption occurs.
Meet the hub lead
Joseph “Joe” McMahon is a senior crisis management, corporate security, evacuation and protective readiness specialist with more than 25 years’ experience supporting multinational organisations in complex and high-risk environments. Based in Vilnius, he leads the ISM Baltic Resilience Hub and teaches leadership and corporate resilience at ISM University of Management and Economics.
Joe spent more than 12 years with Control Risks, developing crisis management systems, supporting evacuations and delivering executive-level training across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. His experience includes business resilience development for major multinational companies and government organisations in Israel, Egypt, Thailand, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Tanzania, Madagascar and the Gulf states. He supported personnel evacuations from Cairo and Alexandria during civil disorder and has delivered resilience consulting in countries including Yemen, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Mali, Iraq, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Argentina.
As Group Physical Security Manager for AXA Group, Joe was responsible for global physical security strategy covering a workforce of more than 160,000 employees during a period of heightened terrorism risk. He currently serves as a Senior Security Advisor to the International Olympic Committee, with experience supporting major international events including Paris 2024 and Milano Cortina 2026.
Earlier in his career, Joe served as a British Army Infantry Captain in Iraq, Northern Ireland and Cyprus, and was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service. He subsequently advised senior officers within the UAE Armed Forces.
Contacts
To discuss research partnerships, events, courses or support for your organisation, please contact:
Joseph McMahon
Head of the ISM Baltic Resilience Hub
ISM University of Management and Economics
Email: Joe.McMahon@faculty.ism.lt