When most of us are doing everything we can to avoid H1N1 swine flu, Annie Searle is immersing herself in it, or at least in the knowledge of how to cope with it.

"I like working on hard things, and I like being what I call a risk detective," she said. "I'm a very optimistic person, because I believe plans can be fixed and you can manage through crisis or catastrophes or emergencies if you're well-prepared."

It was that optimism that encouraged her to quit her job in the height of the recession as a pandemic expert at JP Morgan Chase and launch her own consulting company.