Pete Gervasoni, Class of 1994, has had an interesting and diverse career since leaving St Martin’s in the Pines. From a baker to an award-winning singer-songwriter, to his current international career in Risk Management and Resilience, Pete has tried his hand (very successfully) at everything.
Having spent two decades in the country music scene, in 2004 Pete was invited by the AFL to perform his award-winning original song “What are they marching for?” for 90,000 people at a sold-out MCG on Anzac Day. His talents do not stop with music, and for the past fifteen-plus years he has forged a successful international career in risk management and resilience. Pete is a Fellow of the Institute of Strategic Risk Management and a Certified Practicing Risk Manager. Having been nominated for risk manager of the year, he was also a finalist in the Institute of Public Administration Awards for his contribution to public sector risk management.
Pete has held senior risk management roles across many Government organisations including the Department of Defence. He is considered an international expert in organisational and community resilience, representing Australia on international committees and writing global standards in order to support developing countries, the UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction, and more than 80 developed countries in enhancing their resilience. Pete has toured the globe as an invited expert presenter at many international conferences, visiting countries including Singapore, Norway, the USA, the United Kingdom and Croatia.
As an internationally recognised expert in risk management, organisational resilience, and community resilience, Pete is currently leading an international team in writing a standard to support organisations and Governments to formulate a resilience policy and design their resilience strategy. Pete has worked with several Government Departments, including the Department of Defence as the lead of their international quality assurance program, the Victorian State Government as risk advisor, and the insurer VMIA as the lead educator in risk management. He has also worked with local governments including Ballarat City Council and the City of Greater Geelong. In these roles, he has transformed their approach to risk management and embedded better decision-making processes based on effectively managing risk. He partnered with Federation University in 2013 and again in 2017 to undertake a world-first research study into organisational resilience and supports PhD student Imogen Stockton in achieving her Doctorate as part of these innovative studies.
Pete volunteers his time to the International Standards Organization (ISO) and Australian Standards in developing new standards for the global community in the resilience domain. He is considered in his industry as a strategic leader which has led to him being invited to speak at many conferences around Australia on a range of topics from risk management to resilience. Pete is definitely an inspiration to the Damascus College community.
Pete Gervasoni, Class of 1994