DRI International is proud to announce its new President and CEO, Michelle Cross. A seasoned resilience professional, longtime board member, and DRI Certified Professional, Cross brings decades of experience to the role.

“I am incredibly honored to join DRI International – the world’s most prestigious resilience organization,” said Cross, who holds Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP) and Certified Cyber Resilience Professional (CCRP) credentials. “I am proud to work for an organization that puts the Certified Professional first. I look forward to creating even greater value for DRI Certified Professionals by working to expand our offerings through cooperative ventures and by bringing new focus to global outreach.”

“Michelle Cross is a seasoned resilience professional with over 25 years of experience,” said Al Berman, DRI Treasurer and past President and CEO. “She is the perfect person to lead DRI International into its very promising future.”

Cross has been working in the risk management and business continuity field for over 25 years, with 10 years as a member of the DRI International Board of Directors.

Prior to DRI, she was a Vice President with Fidelity Investments. While with Fidelity, Cross led the Business Continuity Center of Excellence and Vendor Resiliency Program, where she was responsible for operational resiliency of Fidelity’s global business operations, distribution channels, broker dealers, and legal entities. She developed strategic planning for increased resiliency, orchestrated global testing and exercising, and created metrics to assess program successes and measure organizational resiliency to drive continuous improvement. Her role involved the integration and coordination of multiple stakeholders including business operations, enterprise technology, and strategic supplier management to ensure a uniform and complete preparedness approach.

Most recently, Cross was the Vice President, Quantitative Data Optimization and Measurement for Fidelity, where she led diverse initiatives including data optimization and data enablement and governance service recovery – a complex and collaborative process to identify root causes and remediation for incidents impacting institutional customers and account holders. Before joining Fidelity in 2016, she spent 11 years as the National Practice Leader for Wells Fargo’s Business Continuity Consulting Practice after providing risk consulting services for Marsh & McLennan.

Cross is nationally recognized in the areas of business continuity, vendor resiliency, violence prevention, and ergonomics, and has spoken at regional and national conferences on these topics. She is a Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP), Certified Cyber Resiliency Professional (CCRP), a Board Certified Professional Ergonomist (BCPE), and holds the Certification in Cyber Security from ISC2 (CC) as well as multiple licenses and services in financial services.

Cross has a B.S. from Northeast University, an M.S. from Northeastern University, and an M.S. from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.