UNHCR Senior Field Security Officer, Anne Dorian

UNICEF Principal Security Coordinator, Paul Farrell

Paul Farrell (Canada) is a strategic security risk-management expert with 40 years of military and security experience, 26 at the international level in the United Nations. Paul is presently the Principal Security Coordinator/Director of Global Security for UNICEF. He has served in multiple roles in UN Security, including as the Director of Policy and Compliance in the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), Principal Security Adviser for the UN in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chief of the Peacekeeping Operations Support Section in UNDSS, Regional Security Adviser for UNICEF in West and Central Africa, and Security Coordinator for the Witness and Victim Support Section in the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Paul was the key architect of the “risk-based” approach to security in the UN and is the foremost expert in the UN on Security Risk Management (SRM). Paul is presently the Chair of the UN Inter-Agency Security Management Network (IASMN) working group on SRM. He has extensive crisis-management experience, including with hostage incident management. Paul holds a Bachelor of Education (BEd) from McGill University and Master of Science (MSc) in Security Risk Management from the University of Leicester.

UNRWA Director of Department of Security Risk Management, Brian Baker

Brian Baker is the Director of Security Risk Management in UNRWA, overseeing the security risk management function for over 30,000 UN personnel across the Middle East. He has over 30 years of security management experience, initially with the British Armed Forces, then switching to the corporate and humanitarian sectors.

Capitalising on his proven hands-on experience in executing security risk management at field level in various high-risk environments, Brian has served in the leadership functions at both regional and headquarters within the UN for the last 8 years, providing organisational leadership and policy development to security decision makers, advisors, and personnel on matters relating to security risk management.

UNDSS DFO Chief Operational Resilience Service, Martin Laffey

Martin Laffey joined the United Nations in 2013 as the UNICEF Country Security Adviser for Libya. He went on to serve in Afghanistan, briefly in the UNICEF Regional Office in Amman and in Somalia. He transferred to UNDSS in 2020 as the Chief Security Adviser in Palestine, surging to Ukraine in 2022 and then to New York as interim chief of the Europe Americas Desk. In 2023, he established the Operational Resilience Service, and deployed back to Palestine with the Emergency Response Team during the Gaza War. He is currently the Chief of the Security Resilience and Emergencies Service in UNDSS.

Mercy Corps Senior Director of Global Security, Steve Gordon

INSO Global Safety and Risk Manager, Panagiotis Olympiou

Panagiotis Olympiou is the Global Safety & Risk Manager at the International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO). With experience in field and HQ operations, he utilizes research and tools from across disciplines to lead in developing strategy and planning around risk and security, upholding the organisation’s preparedness and crisis response capacity.

His primary domain of practice is humanitarian action and conflict analysis, having worked on public policy consulting in Libya, the refugee crisis in Greece, on humanitarian security risk management in Eastern Afghanistan, and on developing civil society programs in Lebanon. He has also conducted independent research on uncertainty and decision making in Afghanistan during the 2021 crisis. He is a Second Lieutenant in Reserve of the Greek Army.

Insecurity Insight Director, Christina Wille