Job titles of the future: Pandemic oracle

Officially, Conor Browne is a biorisk consultant. Based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he has advanced degrees in security studies and medical and business ethics, along with United Nations certifications in counterterrorism and conflict resolution. He’s worked on teams with NATO’s Science for Peace and Security Programme and with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, analyzing how diseases affect migration and border security.

Early in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, international energy conglomerates seeking expert guidance on navigating the potential turmoil in markets and transportation became his main clients. Having studied the 2002 SARS outbreak, he predicted the exponential spread of the new airborne virus. He forecast the epidemic’s broadscale impact and its implications for business so accurately that he has come to be seen as a pandemic oracle. 

Browne produces independent research reports and works directly with companies of all sizes. One of his niches is consulting on new diagnostic tools—for example, in his work with RAIsonance, a startup using machine learning to analyze cough sounds correlated with tuberculosis and covid-19. For multinational corporations, he models threats such as the possibility of avian influenza spreading from human to human. He builds most- and least-likely scenarios for how the global business community might react to an H5N1 outbreak in China or the US. “I never want to be right,” he says of worst-case predictions. 

Navigating uncertainty

Biorisk consultants are often trained in fields related to epidemiology, security, and counterterrorism. Browne also studied psychology to understand how humans respond to disaster. In times of increasing geopolitical volatility, he says, biomedical risk assessment must include sociopolitical forecasting.

Demand for this type of crisis planning exploded in the corporate world in the aftermath of 9/11. Executives learned to create contingency plans for loss of personnel and infrastructure as a result of terrorism, pandemics, and natural disasters. And resilience planning proved crucial early in the covid-19 pandemic, as business leaders were forced to adjust to supply chain disruptions and the realities of remote work. 

Network effects

By adding nuanced qualitative analysis to hard data, Browne creates proprietary guidance that clients can act on. “I give businesses an idea of what is coming, and what they do with that information is up to them,” he says. “I basically tell the future.”

Britta Shoot is a freelance journalist focusing on pandemics, protests, and how people occupy space.