Making Sense of the Polycrisis – A Systems Lens for Supply Chain Risk and Resilience
CBS Maritime invites colleagues, students and partners interested in global business, supply chains, strategic resilience and complex environments to an afternoon exploring how polycrisis is reshaping the business landscape—and how organisations and researchers can turn turbulence into new thinking and impactful action.
Polycrisis, supply chain risks, international business, strategy and resilience
Global supply chains are no longer disrupted by isolated events; rather, today’s risks collide, interact, and amplify one another. Geopolitical tensions, environmental pressures (from climate impacts to biodiversity loss), cyber vulnerabilities, financial volatility, and regulatory shifts now operate as an interconnected system where a disturbance in one area (industry or region) can rapidly cascade across others. Understanding how these risks combine and reinforce each other is essential for navigating a world defined not by single crises, but by polycrisis dynamics.
This workshop brings together academics and practitioners to explore how organisations can make sense of this complexity and build resilience. Drawing on systems thinking, the session introduces a shared language for analysing disruption, demonstrates how shocks propagate through physical, informational, financial, and reputational pathways, and illustrates why traditional risk models struggle to capture today’s non-linear escalation patterns. Real-world examples, including recent maritime and environmental disruptions, show how compounding risks reshape global networks and redistribute advantage.
Omera Khan and Nick Bailey will guide us in rethinking core assumptions about risk and resilience. The workshop is designed to spark new perspectives, illuminate cross-domain interconnections, and support richer collaboration across CBS.
Join us for an engaging, forward-looking conversation and come prepared to reflect, challenge assumptions, and explore how systemic insights can shape better decisions in a polycrisis world.
About the speakers
Professor Omera Khan (Chief of Staff/Strategy & ESG, DHL Supply Chain APAC), PhD, is a leading voice in logistics and supply chain management, with more than 20 years of international experience across academia, industry, and executive advisory. She is widely recognised for her expertise in supply chain risk and resilience and her ability to help organisations adapt and transform in complex global environments. Omera is Chief of Staff and Strategy & ESG Lead for DHL Supply Chain in Asia Pacific, where she also serves on the regional Management Board in Singapore. In this role, she helps set and coordinate the region’s strategic direction. Alongside her executive leadership, Omera is a prolific researcher and author. She has led major research projects for government bodies, research councils, and multinational firms, published in leading academic journals, and written several influential books on supply chain strategy and resilience.
Nick Bailey (Co-Founder, The Signal House), is a strategist and systems thinker with more than 15 years of experience advising global logistics providers, shippers, and investors. He specialises in helping organisations turn disruption into resilience and advantage, combining data-driven insight with clear narrative and practical tools. As founder of The Signal House, a research and advisory firm focused on supply chain resilience and strategy, Nick works with leaders to navigate complexity and build lasting capability. His work bridges boardroom priorities with operational realities, giving decision-makers the clarity and foresight to act with speed and confidence in a polycrisis world.