Dr Jean Renouf is the CEO of Safer Future, the founder and Chair of the community resilience-building registered charity Plan C (“Our plan is the community”), and a firefighter with Fire and Rescue NSW.

He is the recipient of the Australian National Emergency Medal and an NSW Premier Citation for his work during the 2019-2020 bushfires, and was a finalist for the 2024 Lismore Shire Citizen of the Year award.

Before this, Dr Renouf spent 15 years working as an international aid worker in war zones and natural disasters, including Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Congo, Haiti, Iraq, North Korea, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and more.

Dr Renouf is a former university lecturer and as such has published several academic and non-academic papers, all focusing on catastrophic disruptions and ways forward. He has completed his PhD at the London School of Economics (LSE) and holds a Master’s Degree from the prestigious Sciences-Po Paris (Institute of Political Studies).

Dr Renouf is also an avid mindfulness practitioner, nature-lover and dad of two young boys.

Selected publications:

• 2024 International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Innovation and deadlock in governing disasters and climate change collaboratively - Lessons from the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia (with co-authors)

• 2023 International Journal of Emergency Management, The implications of climate change for emergency management: the example of Australia

• 2023 The Conversation, When disaster strikes, emergency responders can’t respond to every call. Communities must be helped to help themselves (with co-authors)

• 2023 The Conversation, Supermarket shelves were empty for months after the Lismore floods. Here’s how to make supply chains more resilient (with co-authors)

• 2021 Climatic Change, Making sense of climate change—the lived experience of experts

• 2019 Medium, What does a climate change resilient community look like?

• 2019 Medium, How we can prepare for, and ethically survive, climate change

Selected public speaking:

• 2024 Disaster Ready Together Summit, Community-led Resilience

• 2023 AdaptNSW Forum, Navigating uncertainty together

• 2023 Charles Sturt University, Connecting for Regional Disaster Resilience Symposium keynote speaker

• 2023 Plan C, Facing Up, How do we live amid the climate and ecological crises?

• 2023 New Economy Network Australia, Local Resilience After Fire and Flood

• 2022 CityTalks Hobarth, Future-proofing Hobarth

• 2021 Australian Disaster Resilience Conference, A systems thinking model to bolster community regeneration and resilience

• 2021 FutureSeeds, Socio-ecological resilience

Selected media profiles:

• 2023 NBN News, A Northern Rivers social entrepreneur pilots a program to boost community resilience

• 2022 Lismore App, Jean Renouf Firefighter and Disaster Recovery Specialist

• 2021 Southern Cross University, Now is the time to build the world we want to live in

Selected artwork:

• 2020 Adapt, Mitigate, Innovate, Unite, Videowall LED display system on the Adelaide Festival Centre in South Australia

• 2019 “Facing our future”, Videowall LED display system on the Southern Cross University Library video wall, July 2019.