“Hi, I am Tonya Aubihl. For the last 7 years I have worked as a Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery Course for GfK, which is a German Market Research Company. This year GfK merged with NielsenIQ and I was appointed Business Resiliency Program Lead. Alongside this role, for the past five years I have been a tutor for BC Training delivering their Live Online Disaster Recovery Course.”
What interested you to get into the world of BC?
“My father worked as a radio electronic engineer and because of this I grew up in his workshop surrounded by broken TVs, cables, transistors, resistors, transformers, and other spare parts. It inspired me to study Applied Informatics at university.”
What was your first job in BC?
“My first job related to Business Continuity was with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, where I worked as a Technical Presales Consultant for ESSN (Enterprise Storage, Servers, and Networking) portfolio. My focus was on ‘Secondary storage systems’ also known as ‘Nearline storage’ used for backup and recovery purposes. During my time in this employment, I learnt a lot about data centre equipment, storage replication, backup software and which solutions are being used for High Availability and Disaster Recovery purposes.”
How many years have you worked in this industry?
“I have worked in the business continuity industry since 2012 so 11 years now!”
How did you get into your tutor role at BC Training?
“I attended multiple courses ran by BC Training and I really enjoyed them! I decided to put myself out there and offer them my knowledge and services. Thankfully I was successful and was offered the position of a BC Training tutor.”
Have you attended any big events since entering the world of BC?
“I have attended several IT-related conferences such as ‘HPE Discover” in Barcelona and ‘Data Centre World’ in Frankfurt.”
Have you won any awards?
“I am proud to announce that this year I was nominated for Women in Tech Excellence Awards in the category ‘Outstanding Returner’.”
What are your hobbies?
“I have lots of hobbies! I enjoy playing the piano and composing songs, mainly in Ukrainian. I love dancing; my favourite is the Cuban salsa. I also like to practice Hung Gar when I have a chance.”
What do you think are the positives and negatives of working in BC?
“For me the most amazing part of working in Business Continuity in particular IT Disaster Recovery, is the feeling of bringing order to chaos, bringing structure and clarity, helping companies to understand their critical applications and their impact on delivering top priority products and services, helping them to mature.”
What advice would you give to someone who is considering a career in BC?
“My main advice would be to continue learning and growing your knowledge in all the relevant areas such as ITIL Service Management Framework and ISO standards. The more knowledge you have, the more confident you will be in your decision making and advice. It’s also important to regularly refresh your knowledge about current technical solutions available on the market.”
If you were a delegate, which BC Training course would you enrol onto, and why?
“If I was a new delegate and hadn’t completed a course before, I would begin with the CBCI Certification Course and then follow with the Cyber Incident Management Course.”
