Resilience in the electrical grid is of growing concern due to worsening weather patterns, heightened cyber-physical connectivity, and increased penetration of non-dispatchable generators. High-level strategic decisions about the commitment of flexibility resources must therefore be made between prioritizing short-term profits through ancillary services and minimizing the impacts of High Impact Low Probability (HILP) events. A Finite State Machine (FSM) is proposed to model these high level decisions in terms of Normal, Alert, Critical, Islanded and Blackout states. Transitions are triggered by the Transmission System Operator (TSO), Distribution System Operation (DSO) or the proposed Resilience Strategist (RS) depending on the expected vulnerability to a forecasted HILP event. This work therefore provides an overview of the operating conditions contained in the FSM as well as the role and functionality of the RS.