Board of Advisors

Sue Kerr
President, Continuity First

Sue Hornstra Kerr is a consultant and founding Director for Continuity First, Inc. She is a highly effective Certified Business Continuity Professional with more than a decade of experience developing and delivering comprehensive Crisis Management, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Programs over a diverse range of industries. She is responsible for leading Executive Management of organizations through crises ensuring an effective and efficient response. She strategically implements solutions aligned with business requirements to achieve exceptional bottom line results. Sue is a leader within the industry including establishing guidelines and standards, publication of articles and participation on industry boards.

As a consultant, Sue has become a trusted advisor to her clients. She works with her clients to ensure that solutions implemented are effective while also meeting the budgetary restrictions of the organization. She has helped clients across many industries to improve their recoverability including insurance, health care, banking, manufacturing, government, schools, etc.

As a Senior Manager within a top 5 credit card issuer, Sue was responsible for all aspects of planning and response. Through the plans developed and her facilitation and leadership, Sue lead the organization through various incidents including 9/11, white powder, internal fires, wild fires, hurricanes, system outages and many others. Sue's extensive operational knowledge enables her to apply business continuity principles to day-to-day operations thereby not only improving recoverability but also implementing process improvements within the operations.

Sue is a sought after speaker within the industry and has spoken at many conferences and seminars. During one speaking engagement where she facilitated a pandemic exercise for the participants, a Federal Examiner commented that he had participated in many such exercises and it was the best one he had seen executed. Sue has also written articles for major industry periodicals

Sue serves on the National Board for the Association of Contingency Planners as the Business Administration Officer and is a founding Officer for the Old Dominion Chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners. Sue is a member of the Business Recovery Association of Virginia and served two terms on the Disaster Recovery Journal Editorial Advisory Board where she developed and defined standards for the Generally Accepted Practices within the profession. Sue also volunteers for the Local Emergency Planning Committees where she assists in the development and facilitation of county exercises.

Sue is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University earning a Bachelors of Science degree with a concentration in Information Systems. She earned a Master's Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University. She has been a Certified business Continuity Professional since 1998.