Extreme Weather Resilience Conference

Roger joined NSS in October 2020, initially heading up the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, then the COBR Unit (2022-2025) and is now Director of the COBR Directorate. Prior to joining NSS, Roger has had a long and varied civil service career across a wide range of different roles. He spent the fi rst decade of his career at the heart of government, fi rstly at HM Treasury and then the Cabinet Offi ce where he led the redesign of the UK’s civil contingencies structures. That was followed by a series of operational and delivery roles ranging from a major emergency services reform programme through to getting planning permission for HS2. Roger also spent a year in industry working for one of the world’s largest IT companies as director of public sector strategy. Most recently, he was Maritime Director at DfT.

Roger leads the COBR Directorate. The COBR Directorate was established in summer 2025, merging the COBR Unit, the National Situation Centre and the Resilience Directorate, with the objective to deliver world-leading crisis management capabilities and to enhance the UK’s resilience. The COBR Directorate engages in horizon scanning across the full range of national security risks, operational preparedness and risk reduction, and drives the operational response to national crisis. The Directorate works to enhance the UK’s resilience structures and its ability to prepare for, adapt to and recover from shocks and disruptions. The COBR Directorate is charged with developing a crisis management profession, and a cadre of crisis staff across Whitehall and beyond. It leads on the development of international cooperation on crisis management capability.

Dr Wynne-Evans is a public health physician by background who has held a number of senior roles in UKHSA and predecessor organisations. He has experience in health protection operations, data, analytics and surveillance, and health security at local, regional and national levels. He was extensively involved in the COVID-19 response as Director of All Hazards Intelligence and currently leads the team from UKHSA responsible for chemical, climate, radiological, nuclear and other non-infectious environmental hazards.

I lead the Environment Agency’s Incident Response Service, working closely with key partners including Defra, Met Office, Cabinet Office (COBR) and MHCLG. My teams cover the wide range of activities that enable us to plan and prepare, respond and recover effectively, efficiently and intelligently to the most serious flood and environmental incidents. The EA is currently focussing on preparing for this winter, ensuring the resilience of the system for potential flooding and putting in place the learning from last winter’s named storms across the whole system response.

Will Lang is the Met Office’s Head of Situational Awareness, with responsibility for the National Severe Weather Warning Service and the team which advises government and the resilience community around impactful weather. His background is in operational weather forecasting, with 25 years of experience, including as a Chief Forecaster and Chief Hydrometeorologist. He chairs the World Meteorological Organisation team responsible for international best practice around impact-based weather warnings.

Garth is the Head of Resilience Delivery for the British Red Cross, leading BRC’s resilience and crisis response operations across the UK that support individuals, communities and partner organisations.  Over the past two decades, his experience has included leading humanitarian operations, inter-agency coordination and community resilience work both in the UK and internationally, with experience leading operation that help people prepare for, and respond to, conflict, civil unrest, extreme weather events, and major natural disasters.  Before joining the Red Cross, Garth led country and multi-country operations for international humanitarian NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, as well as leading humanitarian NGO networks during major humanitarian responses.  His work has a particular focus on agile approaches to coordination, bringing together communities, civil society, Government, and others to put whole-of-society resilience and emergency approaches into practice.

Anna is the Trust’s Head of Operations, ensuring that the organisation’s operations remain efficient, responsive and scalable in the event of an emergency. She supports the Trust’s response to local emergencies, including the Minehead bus crash, the Liverpool parade collision, the Bicester Motion fire and the Heaton Park Synagogue attack in 2025. She also leads the Trust’s Community Resilience project, focused on strengthening preparedness and resilience at a local level across the UK.

Previously, Anna managed the British Red Cross emergency appeals programme, coordinating the organisation’s response and guiding appeal strategy across 15 appeals, raising more than £200 million for people in crisis. This included leading four UK-based appeals in 2017, which collectively raised more than £30 million.