Building Resilience into Business: Recommendations from an FHI 360 and AWR Lloyd Roundtable
Bangkok, 13 November 2026
As global disruptions become more frequent, businesses must build resilience into how they operate, make decisions and support their people and partners. That was the central message of Resilient Businesses, Resilient Workforces, a private roundtable held during the Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund in October.
The event was jointly hosted by FHI 360, a global nonprofit organisation that works with communities and partners t0 expand economic opportunity, improve health outcomes, and respond to humanitarian crises, and AWR Lloyd, the specialist Strategy Consultancy, AI Solutions and M&A firm focused on Asia and the Middle East.
The two organisations have previously collaborated on several crisis management, business continuity and crisis recovery assignments in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific during the Covid-19 pandemic. More recently AWR Lloyd and FHI 360 have partnered with the Indonesian industrial estate association (HKI) to promote best practice crisis contingency planning amongst their members.
The event brought together business leaders, investors, development partners and financial institutions for a discussion on how organisations can prepare for, withstand and recover from cascading crises—from weather disasters and geopolitical tensions to economic volatility and supply chain shocks.
The roundtable underscored the importance of moving from reactive crisis management toward an integrated approach to resilience, enabling businesses and their wider ecosystems to sustain long-term growth amid uncertainty.
The conversation surfaced specific ways organisations can prepare for the unknown:
- Invest in people. Workforce resilience depends on continuous learning, cross-training, a culture of trust and preparing employees for technological change.
- Strengthen value chains. Businesses should build closer relationships with suppliers, especially SMEs, through capability-building, financial support and more flexible commercial terms.
- Plan for connected risks. Preparedness means looking beyond single crisis scenarios to assess interconnected risks, stress-test operations and strengthen response capabilities.
- Unlock finance and partnerships. Mobilising private capital, widening access to finance and deepening public-private partnerships are essential to long-term resilience.
A recurring theme was that no business is resilient in isolation—continuity depends on the resilience of employees, suppliers, customers and communities. As Ashreya Shrestha, Deputy CEO and Head of Sustainability and Resiliency at AWR Lloyd, said to open the session, “Resilience should not be treated as a plan in a drawer, but as an operating system”.
Participants from FHI 360: Nujpanit Narkpitaks, Technical Advisor, Health and Environment and Caroline Averch, Technical Advisor, Economic Resilience; and Shahera Youssef Younes, Senior Center Director, Economic Resilience.
Participants from AWR Lloyd: Ashreya Shrestha, Deputy CEO and Head of Sustainability and Resiliency; and Maximillian Wood, Senior Advisor.
Additional participants: Somruedee Chaimongkol, former CEO of Banpu PLC; Rajesh Mehra, Trade and Supply Chain Finance Regional Practice Group Lead, Asia and Pacific, International Finance Corporation; and Arturo Herrera, Global Director for Governance, World Bank, and former Finance Minister of Mexico.
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About AWR Lloyd
AWR Lloyd is a specialist advisory firm focused on strategic technologies, infrastructure, energy and natural resources in Asia and the Middle East.
Established in February 2000, AWR Lloyd has a 26-year track record advising leading corporates, financial institutions and public sector clients on strategy, restructuring, crisis resiliency, capital projects, M&A, valuation, due diligence, IPOs, and IR and ESG.
AWR Lloyd has offered Crisis Resiliency services to its clients for over 7 years starting with a focus on Energy Security and since Covid-19 offering a more comprehensive Crisis Management and Crisis Contingency Planning service to companies in the energy, infrastructure and industrial sectors across Asia and the Middle East.
AWR Lloyd is recognised for its discreet, bespoke, innovative and results-focused approach, and as a thought leader in Energy & Industry Transformation, Shareholder Value Resilience and the Asia-Gulf Gateway.
The firm has been ranked by the Financial Times among Asia-Pacific’s fastest-growing consultancies and No. 1 for Women and Ethnic Minorities in Asia-Pacific by Vault.
Website: www.awrlloyd.com
About FHI360
FHI 360 is a nonprofit organisation that mobilises research, resources and relationships so that people everywhere can access the opportunities they need to lead full, healthy lives.
With staff of more than 2,200 experts in 70+ countries around the world, FHI 360 engages partners and communities in expanding economic opportunity, improving health outcomes, and responding to humanitarian crises.
Website: www.fhi360.org