Sharron L. McPherson

About Sharron L. McPherson

Sharron L. McPherson helps leaders see what gets missed when big infrastructure and investment decisions are made in silos, before those decisions become expensive to reverse. She is the founder and CEO of Virginia-based Resilience Technologies Inc., creator of the Resilience Method and R Score, and developer of Resilience X, a decision-intelligence platform whose first commercial focus is AI and data-center infrastructure. Her book, From Risk to Resilience: Why Risk Models Fail and Why Resilience Is a Smarter Investment in an Age of Uncertainty, was published in September 2026 by Palgrave Macmillan, part of Springer Nature. Her career spans Wall Street banking and law, nearly fifteen years teaching project finance at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, a clerkship at the Constitutional Court of South Africa under Justice Albie Sachs, board service in insurance and impact finance, and policy work on infrastructure resilience. Raised in Norfolk, Virginia, she has lived in South Africa for thirty years and calls Cape Town home. She is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and Columbia Law School.

Key message

Important decisions fail when the things that matter are evaluated separately even though they behave as one connected whole. A risk snapshot tells leaders where a system stands; a resilience trajectory shows where it is heading, what is driving that direction and what can still be changed. The failures that cost institutions the most live in the spaces between specialists. Decision-grade resilience must be good enough to change a real decision, not merely describe good intentions. See the whole decision. Measure the direction, not only the moment. Act while choices remain.

Speaking topics and expertise

• AI and Data-Center Infrastructure
• Infrastructure Finance and Project Viability
• Insurance and the Protection Gap
• Board Risk Governance and Decision Quality
• African Infrastructure and the Mispricing of Risk
• Technology
• Uncertainty and Decision Intelligence

Achievements

Founder and CEO of Resilience Technologies Inc.; creator of the Resilience Method and R Score; developer of the Resilience X decision-intelligence platform. Author of From Risk to Resilience, published by Palgrave Macmillan, part of Springer Nature, in September 2026. Presented RTI’s Virginia Data Center Viability Index and R Score approach to senior officials at the Virginia Department of Energy on 23 July 2026, covering 133 Virginia localities in one integrated view. Raised more than US$2 billion in foreign direct investment for Sub-Saharan Africa across her career. Nearly fifteen years teaching project finance at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. Clerked at the Constitutional Court of South Africa under Justice Albie Sachs. Former independent non-executive director of Momentum Metropolitan Holdings and chair of its Social, Ethics and Transformation Committee. Chair of Shared Interest and non-executive board member of Cenfri. Policy work on infrastructure resilience through the Henry L. Stimson Center and faculty with Singularity University.

Education

JD, Columbia Law School | BA Economics, College of William and Mary | Honours, Université de Toulon | Parker School Certificate in International and Comparative Law | Post-doctoral studies in Exponential Technology, Singularity University

Talks and speeches

INTELLIGENCE FOR INFRASTRUCTURE Why AI infrastructure fails in the places nobody was looking, and how to see them before the concrete is poured. For data-center developers and operators, utilities, infrastructure investors and technology leaders. Sharron shows what happens when land, power, water, permitting, capital and community are reviewed separately and then collide on one site. The audience leaves able to ask what changes when these conditions interact before commitment. FROM RISK TO RESILIENCE Why risk models fail, and why resilience is a smarter investment in an age of uncertainty. The book talk for banks, asset managers, insurers, finance and risk conferences and business schools. Sharron moves from the mortgage market she watched from inside before 2008 to the physical systems she measures today, explaining why trajectory matters when conditions interact and change. SNAPSHOT OR TRAJECTORY The question your board is not asking. For boards and executive committees. A point-in-time risk assessment tells directors where the organisation stands. A trajectory tells them where the system is heading, what is driving the direction and what they still have time to change. BEFORE THE CONCRETE IS POURED Site viability when power, water, land, capital and community collide. For infrastructure practitioners, planners, engineers, utilities and project finance teams. A working examination of the collision points that can alter project economics after a seemingly sound site has already been selected. MISPRICED, NOT MERELY RISKY What thirty years in African markets teach capital about hidden value. For investors, lenders, development finance institutions and African infrastructure forums. Sharron argues that African markets can be genuinely risky and systematically mispriced at the same time, and asks what an asset or project becomes worth when capital can finally see the whole picture. THE PROTECTION GAP IS A SEEING GAP Resilience intelligence for insurers and reinsurers. For underwriting, risk and insurance leadership. Separate models price separate perils; real losses arrive together. Sharron examines how trajectory and interdependence can complement catastrophe models and widen what insurers are able to see. A DASHBOARD IS NOT A DECISION What decision intelligence looks like when the choice is physical and the consequences last decades. For executive technology audiences. More data does not automatically create a better decision when every function sees its own dashboard. Sharron shows the difference between reporting faster and seeing the decision whole. THE WHOLE DECISION, HALF-DAY MASTERCLASS A working session built around one live executive decision. The team maps the decision, surfaces the interdependencies held separately across functions and identifies the question worth testing next. No scoring diagnostic is marketed until RTI has validated one.

Delivery style

Direct, precise and decision-led. Sharron begins with the consequential decision facing the audience rather than with credentials or abstract theory. She translates between capital, infrastructure, technology, policy, governance and the people who live with the consequences of those decisions. Concrete cases make complex interdependencies visible without reducing them to slogans. Her delivery is calm and rigorous rather than theatrical. Personal experience appears where it earns its place, including Wall Street, thirty years in African markets and her own experience of ignoring the warning signals that led to stage-four burnout twice. The story explains why she keeps looking for what systems miss; it never replaces the argument. She is strongest with executives, boards, investors and practitioners prepared to examine a real decision, challenge an assumption and engage in substantive Q&A.

Why audiences listen

Sharron has occupied the seats that usually argue past one another. She has priced risk as a Wall Street banker, worked as an attorney, taught the structures that finance infrastructure for nearly fifteen years, served on boards responsible for the outcome, worked on infrastructure policy and is now building decision technology around the same problem. Her argument is practical: the expensive failures are rarely hidden inside one specialist’s analysis. They appear when power, water, land, capital, permitting, infrastructure and community conditions meet and nobody owns the collision. Sharron helps leaders see those interactions before commitment, while choices are still available. The audience is not being asked to believe in resilience as a fashionable idea. It is being asked to improve the quality of a consequential decision.

What the talks address

How large infrastructure and investment decisions fail when interdependent conditions are assessed separately. The difference between a point-in-time risk snapshot and a resilience trajectory. AI and data-center infrastructure viability. Infrastructure finance and project underwriting. Insurance and the protection gap. Board governance of risks that cross committee boundaries. The mispricing of African infrastructure and investment. Decision intelligence and the limits of fragmented dashboards. Across every theme, the central question is the same: what changes when the conditions interact?

What participants will learn

How to distinguish a snapshot from a trajectory and understand why both matter. How to recognise hidden interdependencies before capital is committed. How to ask what changes when power, water, land, capital, permitting and community conditions interact. How to apply that question to site selection, infrastructure underwriting, board governance, insurance and investment decisions. How resilience intelligence can sit beside existing risk models rather than pretend to replace them.

What audiences take home

A mental model they can use in their next consequential decision: a sound part does not guarantee a sound whole. Participants leave with two questions worth taking back into their organisation: “What changes when these conditions interact?” and “Where is the system going, what is driving that direction, and what can we still change?” For boards, that becomes a trajectory question. For investors and lenders, it becomes a better underwriting question. For infrastructure teams, it becomes a collision map before commitment.

Benefits for individuals

Sharper judgement in complex decisions. A practical way to challenge fragmented analysis without dismissing specialist expertise. The ability to recognise when a risk report describes only the present rather than the direction of travel. Stronger language for asking questions across investment, infrastructure, governance, technology and risk functions.

Benefits for organisations

Fewer contradictory internal views, earlier decisions and fewer expensive surprises. A shared way for different functions to examine one consequential decision rather than optimise their own piece independently. Better visibility of interdependencies before commitment and a stronger basis for tracking how conditions are changing over time. Depending on the use case, the result can include avoided delay, reduced exposure, protected capital or improved project viability; exact measures must be agreed for the specific decision rather than promised generically.