Blakeley, Kelly
Kelly Blakeley is the Founder of Flex Story, a UAE-headquartered resilience and strategy firm working with organisations worldwide to strengthen crisis leadership, preparedness, interoperability, and organisational resilience. She also serves as a Global Board Director of the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), representing over 100 countries, where she plays a key role in governance, strategic transformation, and advancing global professional standards in organisational resilience.
Kelly is known for her future-focused perspective, helping organisations anticipate and adapt to emerging risks – from technological disruption to shifting geopolitical landscapes – while maintaining the human-centred foundations of effective crisis leadership.
Her career spans government, critical infrastructure, and academia, with leadership roles that have influenced national and international preparedness agendas. In the UAE, she has worked extensively with government entities and critical infrastructure operators on resilience strategies, national programmes, and cross-sector training initiatives, with a strong emphasis on interoperability between agencies and sectors. Previously, she was requested to join the UAE-government-owned Rabdan Academy as the vocational lead for resilience and crisis programmes.
As a capability lead at the UK Government’s UK Resilience Academy, she completed delivery of programmes such as the national Cyber Pathfinder Programme, training over 1,000 responders and directed national Covid-19 responder programmes, as well as led crisis simulations at ministerial and cross-government levels to strengthen interoperability and multi-agency coordination.
Earlier in her career with Lincolnshire County Council, Kelly was part of the Local Resilience Forum Secretariat team, facilitating the planning, response, recovery, and testing of the multi-agency partnership responsible for preparing for and responding to large-scale emergencies. This included advancing interoperability across responder agencies and local partners, as well as directing planning and response for major incidents across capabilities, including cyberattacks that required both organisational and multi-agency continuity measures.
Kelly contributes to the development of international resilience standards as an Expert Committee Member and UK Representative to the British Standards Institute (BSI) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO). She also serves as an advisor to the Resilience Advisors Network, supporting global projects and multi-agency collaborations.
An experienced speaker and panellist, she has addressed high-level forums across the Middle East, Europe, and beyond, including the World Police Summit, the International Fire Operations Conference, and the Risk, Emergency & Business Continuity Management Forum, amongst others. Her published work includes thought leadership for Crisis Response Journal and Emergency Service Times.
Kelly holds a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Leeds, has completed executive education at Oxford Saïd Business School and studied artificial intelligence implications for business strategy with MIT Sloan School of Management. She is a Full Member of both the Institute of Directors and the BCI. She is passionate about strengthening human networks, interoperability, and decision-making under pressure in a world of increasing complexity.