BCI Global Awards 2022 – Winner Spotlight: Jayne Romanczuk MBCI
We are pleased to introduce Jayne Romanczuk MBCI, winner of the 2022 BCI Continuity & Resilience Professional (Private Sector) Global Award. In this short article, we share Jayne’s career journey and experience in entering and winning both a BCI Regional and Global award.
Jayne has worked in Business Continuity & Resilience for six years and it is a career that she says, “found me.” It all started when Jayne was working as a debt advisor for British Gas and a senior manager asked her if she’d like to be transferred into a site support role, primarily looking after Business Continuity and data protection. Jayne jumped at the opportunity and then she says “[I] paused to think what on earth is Business Continuity?” However, by this point, she was committed to the new role and was sat having a brief from her new manager, which represented the start of her journey. She says, “I’d come into a normal day’s work and two hours later had a new role, new objectives, and not much of a clue! Turns out a perfect career had just found me.”
Jayne found her way through the new position by reading existing documents and using Google, but she soon went in for CBCI training and things started to come together. She explains, “through trial and error, I started to love this new job and found I was actually quite good at it. I went on in this site support role, managing Business Continuity as my main workstream for their Credit Services office, alongside a number of other workstreams, such as data protection, health & safety, wellbeing, and engagement.” In this role, Jayne transformed Business Continuity Management and the way it was done, challenging the status quo and standing out from the other office’s Business Continuity. She says, “my work got noticed and, as a project launched to review Business Continuity and Operational Resilience across their UK Customer Operations, a new opportunity arose to join an assurance team to work on these improvements.”
In her new role as a Business Assurance Lead, Jayne worked on enhancing the Business Continuity programme across UK Customer Operations. She explains, “I developed new standards and ways of working, developed online Business Continuity sites with ongoing governance of BC for better management. As a team we supported incidents and crises which affected the UK Customer Operations, we built a new online incident management tool and exercised the Executive Leadership team regularly. In preparation for Operational Resilience being implemented, I worked across the important business services to map and develop playbooks for potential incidents.”
Jayne continued to advance her career and is currently the Business Continuity Manager for Bupa. At Bupa she manages all elements of the Business Continuity Management Lifecycle and Operational Resilience for their UK Insurance Operations.
As per entering the BCI Awards, Jayne says, “entering awards is mostly about self-reflection.” She continues, “I was entered into my first award (Newcomer) in 2018 as my manager at the time was rather fond of awards and as a team, we pushed for external awards regularly.” Reflecting on one of the challenges of writing her submission in 2018, she says, “am not good at self-recognition. I’m the type of person that always feels I did okay but could improve. Therefore, being asked to write my own submission was extremely challenging for me and an exercise I hated from start to finish. Although, after about twenty odd drafts, it was done, my manager approved, it was submitted, and I was subsequently shortlisted and had a wonderful trip to Milan.”
That year, Jayne did not win, but she says, “none of that mattered. I went back to that submission and read it, I couldn’t believe I was reading about myself, it gave me a boost, encouragement that I was doing quite well, and direction on where and how I could become better. This is where my drive to enter awards came from - seeing it as an exercise to review the year’s work and begin to plan for the next year.” She also adds, “there’s no doubt that I am an extremely competitive person so there is, of course, a big part of me that enters to win. Who doesn’t?”
In 2022, Jayne won the BCI Regional and Global awards for a professional in the private sector. She says, “winning is a personal boost for me to recognise what I’ve achieved, how far I’ve come and what direction to go in next. I’ve never seen awards as a way of advancing my career or profile. Yes, it helps me grow and improve, which in turn will promote me in my career, but I’ve never thought a win will help me get where I need to be. It’s more the exercise of entering that I see benefit from career-wise. Personally, career aside, of course a win is fantastic - I love to win! As I mentioned before, I am competitive by nature.”
When it comes to giving advice to those looking to enter the BCI Awards, Jayne says, “I will give the advice I hated all those years ago… try and write the submission yourself if you have the chance - especially if you’re entering a personal award.” Jayne gives this advice for two reasons, firstly, “you know your own work better than anyone and secondly, it’s a great exercise to help you progress.”
According to Jayne, knowing your own work best will help with your submission as “the judges will look to see how you have worked the BCM lifecycle and how you have been able to manage challenges as well as adding value. The person wanting to submit your entry may not know the depth of the work you’ve done or some of the true challenges you’ve faced. Focus on all the work you’ve done, even what you may think are “the little things”, as they all create a bigger picture and evidence how you’ve really made an impact.”
Jayne also adds that “being reflective is important to grow ourselves and better the work we do for our organizations or clients. We must be able to appreciate where we’ve excelled whilst understanding how we can improve and what we could build on in the next 12 months.”
Lastly, Jayne’s advice is that “it’s a good idea to get feedback, as this can paint a good picture of how you’re adding value, whether as a team, a person, software, whatever it may be. Feedback from stakeholders can help support a submission so add those quotes to your submission!”
The BCI Regional Awards 2023 are now available to enter!
You can now enter your nomination for the BCI Regional Awards. There are 13 award categories available for each region that cater for professionals/consultants, teams, and/or organizations. This is an exciting opportunity to showcase and gain a prestigious recognition for your work and stand out in the Business Continuity & Resilience industry.
Follow the links below to learn more about the application process, the judges and more. If you are ready to submit your nomination, the please click here.
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About the author
Jayne Romanczuk
Business Continuity Manager, Bupa
As many BC Professionals will say; I didn't find Business Continuity, it found me. This is exactly how my career started, Business Continuity found me and I've never looked back since, I started my journey as a 'Site Support Assistant' where I was responsible for the business continuity of British Gas' Debt Operations, I quickly moved on to a position where I supported the business continuity and operational resilience for British Gas' UK Customer Operations. This was only my first 2 years within the industry which was concluded nicely by being awarded with both the BCI European and Global Newcomer of the Year Award 2019, as well as being shortlisted for CIR Magazine’s Business Continuity Manager of the Year 2019.
Since then I progressed into my current role as a Business Continuity Manager for Bupa where I am responsible for the development and maintenance of the BCM programme for their UK Insurance Operation, as well as the management of their Operational Resilience programme. I joined Bupa's UK BC Team in March 2020 and have successfully improved their business continuity management and overall resilience across Bupa's UK Insurance Sector. Whilst in role I have also been fortunate enough to be awarded the BCI's European Continuity & Resilience Professional 2022 after being shortlisted for the award in 2021. I have been Highly Commended for CIR Magazine's Business Continuity/Resilience Manager of the Year 2021 and shortlisted in 2022. My team at Bupa successfully won both the BCI European & Global Continuity & Resilience Team 2021, and shortlisted for CIR Magazine's Team of the Year 2021.
Communication is key; prior to working in business continuity, I had the opportunity to engage with people from all walks of life, this helped me realise just how important rapport is and I apply this skill in my work by building strong relationships with stakeholders and working close to the business to help me understand its needs better. Another of my key skills is the ability to identify & implement improvement opportunities to advance business resilience, I have managed BCM improvement projects in each role I have held, each time with outstanding results.
Across the roles that I have had, I've been fortunate enough to be involved in all elements of the BCM Lifecycle from developing Governance Frameworks to building online platforms for managing incidents. I am currently building my capabilities within the Operational Resilience discipline, supporting in developing the framework, ongoing maintenance and preparing regulator documents for assessment.
I'm naturally an inquisitive person and strive for the best, this drives me to keep learning and pushing myself in the work that I do, with the ultimate goal of progressing in my career as a Business Continuity and Operational Resilience Professional.
