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Culture & Governance

The Bottom Line on Trust: Institutions Can’t Count on It

A Gallup survey in June 2023 showed continuation of a long-term trend of “historically low faith” in U.S. institutions, with many of them “at or near rock bottom.” Confidence in big business came in...

March 8, 2024 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

Coming Up Short: Risk Management Deficiencies of the UN’s Interim Report on AI

The United Nations wants to maximize the opportunities created by artificial intelligence (AI) and minimize its risks. However, the suggestions made toward this end by the recently created UN AI...

February 16, 2024 | By Alessandro Mauro

Culture & Governance

Artificial Intelligence Poses Difficult Questions for Corporate Boards. It Can Also Improve How They Work.

Technology governance and risk management have long been tough subjects in corporate boardrooms predominantly populated by non-technologists. Artificial intelligence, and particularly the rocketing...

January 19, 2024 | By David Weldon

Culture & Governance

Building a Healthy Risk Culture: A Q&A With Clifford Rossi

When a financial institution fails and its postmortem is written, the focus inevitably turns to culture. For banks, beyond the corporate approach, risk culture is especially important. What does it...

August 18, 2023 | By Tod Ginnis

Culture & Governance

A CRO on a Mission to Help Build a Resilient Culture

As chief risk officer since 2019, Senthil Kumar has helped guide BNY Mellon – America’s oldest bank and one of the global giants of investment servicing – through post-pandemic workplace changes,...

August 11, 2023 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

How Risk Managers Should Define a Crisis, and Why It Matters: A Q&A With Dr. René Stulz

In the 21st century, it seems as if the world has bounced from one financial disaster to the next, with the Great Recession, the European debt crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic among the fiascoes...

August 4, 2023 | By Tod Ginnis

Culture & Governance

In a Highly Connected World, Disease Is Not Isolated from Other Risks

For its 2023 Global Risks Report, the Word Economic Forum asked leaders across academia, business, government, the international community and civil society to rank a series of global risks according...

June 30, 2023 | By David Wheeler

Culture & Governance

Different, but the Same: What Bank Failures Can Teach

Things had been thankfully quiet on the bank failure front before March 2023. Since aggressive lending backfired in epic fashion in 2007, toppling more than 500 American banks over the next...

April 28, 2023 | By Donald van Deventer

Culture & Governance

Managing Compliance and Complexity: A GRC Call to Action

Many governance, risk and compliance (GRC) teams are being asked to find creative ways to do more with less and demonstrate more business value. This will force them into a difficult juggling act....

March 3, 2023 | By Robyn Marsi

Culture & Governance

How to Develop Effective Risk Documentation

Good written risk documentation is both an art and a science. In a perfect world, the writer and subject matter expert (SME) come together as one. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world,...

February 17, 2023 | By John Thackeray

Culture & Governance

When Due Diligence Fails: Cautionary Current Events

With M&A activity likely to increase this year, excellence in due diligence will be critical for sellers and in particular for acquirers. Yet there are at least two recent examples of due diligence...

February 10, 2023 | By Charles Wendel

Culture & Governance

Corporate Treasury’s Seat at the Enterprise Risk Management Table

With the Ukraine war, supply chain disruptions, rising interest rates and strong dollar, companies face unprecedented worldwide volatility. This environment is accelerating the need for treasury...

January 20, 2023 | By Greg Deveney and Johan Nystedt

Culture & Governance

Trust Is Being Tested in Uncertain Times

In business we trust. According to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, business was the most trusted of four major institutions. Its 61% approval rating topped those of government, non-governmental...

December 16, 2022 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

Crashing with Crypto: Coinbase as Case Study

Coinbase Global, operator of the biggest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, went public in April 2021. It has been mostly rough going since. The company’s market valuation has plunged, from an initial $86...

August 12, 2022 | By David Weldon

Culture & Governance

How to Use ERM, ML and Scenario Analysis to Advance Your Risk Career

Financial institutions have been attempting to move away from risk silos for years, but true, integrated enterprise risk management (ERM) remains a work in progress. Since some on the business side...

July 1, 2022 | By Tod Ginnis

Culture & Governance

Getting Schooled on Risk: Graduate Programs Cultivate Talent for the Times

When risk management veteran Clifford Rossi started out in the 1980s with a Cornell University PhD in Financial Economics and Quantitative Methods, his goal wasn’t to become a risk specialist per se,...

June 24, 2022 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

Building a Unified Theory of Risk Management: How and Why

Our risk management frameworks have not advanced commensurate with the level and trajectory of risk over time. A new paradigm is therefore desperately needed. Take, for example, enterprise risk...

May 13, 2022 | By Clifford Rossi

Culture & Governance

Engineering a Diverse Workplace: Edward Jones’ CRO Is Determined to ‘Be the Difference’

Edward Jones chief risk officer Christopher Van Buren recently revealed that his biggest career lesson to date is that he “can be the difference.” It is something he said he didn’t have the...

May 6, 2022 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

How Advanced Technologies and AI Are Helping to Achieve Compliance, Improve Operations and Meet ESG Goals

Historically, compliance and risk management have been viewed as critical functions, but not functions that proactively generate business value. Honeywell’s Amanda Sabates: Visualizing risks and...

April 29, 2022 | By Amanda Sabates

Culture & Governance

Ibrahim Dusi, 'Super App' CRO

The race is on to be the most sought after financial super app, simplifying access to a full array of banking, credit and other services via mobile devices. Revolut, founded in London in 2015 as a...

April 22, 2022 | By Katherine Heires

Culture & Governance

While Data and Tech Skills Are in Demand, Analysis and Communication Still Matter

Even as data management and technology skills are seen as increasingly essential for risk managers, observers of the profession and of recruiting trends say that longstanding analysis and...

April 15, 2022 | By John Hintze

Culture & Governance

Resilience in the Face of Geopolitical Threats

For the last two years, it feels like we’ve lived in a state of ongoing crisis as unexpected global events have disrupted organizations in every part of the world. From a global pandemic and massive...

April 1, 2022 | By Bogdana Sardak

Culture & Governance

The Risk Landscape Is Crowded and Complicated. What Happens Next?

From consulting firms and think tanks to central banks and the International Monetary Fund, there is no shortage of documentation and data points on the perils of the world and, as categorized in the...

March 25, 2022 | By Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

Managing People Is Risky Business

It’s a paradox made more pronounced by the pandemic: People are a company’s greatest resource, and also its greatest risk. Start with all the buzz around the Great Resignation, which saw a record 4.5...

February 11, 2022 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

Cyber and Compliance, ESG and Organizational Resilience: They’re All Connected

2021 was a record year for cyber breaches, as reported by the Identity Theft Resource Center. With high-profile attacks hitting the headlines – from SolarWinds to Colonial Pipeline to CNA Financial,...

January 28, 2022 | By Lauren Kornutick

Culture & Governance

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago’s Path from CRO to CEO

While rising to the challenges of 21st-century crises, chief risk officers have gained in prestige and C-suite positions. Rarely, however, do former CROs become chief executive officers, with...

December 3, 2021 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

Managing Remote Workforces: It's Still All About the People

Spyro Karetsos was hired as Google's chief compliance officer more than a year ago, but he has not yet actually gone to work - to the office, that is. In fact, everything from the interview process...

October 15, 2021 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

The Crucial Link Between Operational Resilience and Customer Trust

Trust is arguably one of the most important brand assets in business. Every transaction is a promise made, and businesses must ensure they keep their promise to customers - such as delivering goods...

September 24, 2021 | By Michael Campbell

Culture & Governance

Boardroom Diversity Directives: Window Dressing, or Potentially World-Changing?

An often-repeated refrain on the topic of boardroom diversity is that it requires a trade-off: sacrificing quality to satisfy quotas. It doesn't have to be - and shouldn't be - that way. Take, for...

September 17, 2021 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

Improving Productivity by Creating a Culture of Inclusivity and Trust

At this time of hybrid working environments, in homes and increasingly back in offices, a prerequisite for an effective, productive organization is a culture of inclusivity and trust. A hybrid...

August 27, 2021 | By John Thackeray

Culture & Governance

What a Difference a Pandemic Makes: Risk Management Is Having Another Moment

To upend an old adage, it's the worst of times, with the world still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating health and economic consequences. And yet, it's perhaps the best of times...

August 13, 2021 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

The Critical Relationship Between ERM Maturity and Value Creation: Buyer Beware, and a Call to Action (Part II)

In Part I, I explored the concept of Enterprise Risk Management Maturity Models, and how they can be effectively used to identify an organization's current ERM capabilities across multiple...

July 16, 2021 | By David Fisher

Culture & Governance

The Critical Relationship Between ERM Maturity and Value Creation: Buyer Beware, and a Call to Action (Part I)

I recently had the opportunity to speak with a senior executive at a large financial institution who was wondering aloud why he wasn't getting more value out of his investment in enterprise risk...

July 2, 2021 | By David Fisher

Culture & Governance

Swans, Rhinos and Elephants Are Animating Risk Debates

The Black Swan casts a long shadow. The concept illuminated in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, required reading in investment and risk management and various other disciplines, seemed to explain so...

June 18, 2021 | By Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

Risk Management in Uncertain Times: How to Prepare for Both the Expected and Unexpected

Facing super-low interest rates, an onslaught of regulatory developments and the emerging priority of climate risk, banks today are under tremendous pressure. However, despite current challenges,...

April 30, 2021 | By Peter Plochan

Culture & Governance

SolarWinds: A Wake-Up Call and Opportunity to Assess Supply Chain Risk Management

The recent SolarWinds incident served as a wake-up call: Having separate cybersecurity, supply chain, and enterprise risk management (ERM) disciplines and units within an organization is increasingly...

April 16, 2021 | By Marianne Bailey, Jason Dury and Kate Sylvis

Culture & Governance

Risk Managers and the COVID Couch

Desperate COVID-19 times have called for desperate measures, and, as it turns out, a decent-sized dose of TLC. More than a year on, many companies and their executives continue operating in crisis...

April 16, 2021 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

Evolving from Business Continuity to Full Operational Resilience

If business continuity is the immediate plan to ensure that a business is able to continue providing services and survive, then operational resilience is the larger strategy that business continuity...

April 9, 2021 | By David LaFalce

Culture & Governance

How to Improve Resilience and Adaptability Post-COVID

An alarming 43% of board members in Europe believe that COVID-19 represents a fundamental threat to the survival of their organization. That's according to a Board Agenda-Mazars-INSEAD Leadership in...

March 26, 2021 | By Haydn Shaughnessy and Fin Goulding

Culture & Governance

Risk Management Silicon Valley-Style

Even Silicon Valley has to face the music. Risk and regulatory pressures are rising for corporations everywhere, so it's not surprising to see some of the biggest names in tech taking steps to be...

February 12, 2021 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

World Economic Forum: Pandemic Is One Risk Among Many

As it does every year, the World Economic Forum identifies and analyzes a long list of threats and hazards - 35 to be exact - in its latest Global Risks Report. One of them stands apart from all the...

January 29, 2021 | By Katherine Heires

Culture & Governance

Pandemic in Retrospect: How Will Risk Management Be Judged?

Risk is the absence of information. There is risk in absolutely everything we do because we can't possibly know all there is to know. This is especially true in a pandemic. In a COVID-19 world, we...

October 30, 2020 | By David X Martin

Culture & Governance

No Mere Abstraction: When COVID-19 Literally Hits Home

The pandemic is all over the news and on everybody's mind. This is especially true of risk managers. It is top of mind as we assess and set priorities in view of increased cyber attacks associated...

September 11, 2020 | By David X Martin

Culture & Governance

CROs Ponder Risk in Uncertain Times

Risk management folks aren't known for being touchy-feely types. But these days, many are mindful of the moment, as companies take stock of their risk management programs and protocols and prepare...

September 4, 2020 | By L.A. Winokur

Culture & Governance

Wells Fargo Builds Out a Team of CROs

While continuing efforts to dispel regulatory clouds lingering from the sales-practices scandal that came to light in 2016, Wells Fargo & Co. has adopted a risk management structure that places chief...

August 21, 2020 | By Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

At Visa, the Globalization of Risk - and of Its Chief Risk Officer

In September 2019, Paul D. Fabara became executive vice president and chief risk officer of Visa. Over the previous eight years he held several senior positions at American Express Co., including...

July 2, 2020 | By Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

COVID-19 Fuels Integration of ESG Ratings

For years, environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors have been a priority among institutional investors. COVID-19 has underscored the significance of the 'S' risk, as the public health and...

June 19, 2020 | By John Hintze

Culture & Governance

The Cannabis Industry Gets an Introduction to Risk Management

More than 30 U.S. states have decriminalized or legalized marijuana. Many of them declared cannabis products to be “essential,” allowing them to be dispensed during pandemic lockdowns, preserving...

May 29, 2020 | By Ted Knutson

Culture & Governance

Water Risks on the Rise

Like many multinationals, packaged-foods giant General Mills relies heavily on sustainable freshwater supplies. It needs neither too much nor too little, and of sufficient quality - a Goldilocks...

May 8, 2020 | By John Engen

Culture & Governance

The World Economic Forum on Pandemic Alert

When the time comes to judge who knew what, and how early, about the coronavirus pandemic, and whether public health alarms were too late, there need be no blame or shame at the World Economic Forum....

May 8, 2020 | By Ted Knutson

Culture & Governance

Crises Need a Different Approach to Risk

Crises labeled as unprecedented catastrophes create unnerving anxiety. Suddenly, issues that seem abstract in everyday life become critical, with no definitive answers: How bad will it get? Whose...

May 1, 2020 | By Karamjeet Paul

Culture & Governance

For the COVID-19 New Normal, Risk and Compliance Advisories Aplenty

The coronavirus pandemic has set off a wave of financial and operational disruption - as in the case of remote work arrangements - causing sudden shifts in risk exposures and mitigation measures....

April 3, 2020 | By Katherine Heires

Culture & Governance

Ex-Regulator and New York Banker Establish Advisory Firm

William Isaac, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and of Fifth Third Bancorp, and Howard Milstein, a prominent New York banker and real estate developer, have formed a strategic...

March 27, 2020 | By Ted Knutson

Culture & Governance

It's Time to Start Managing the Complexities of Climate Financial Risk

Many firms recognize that climate financial risk is a complex, far-reaching risk with unknown systemic consequences that could affect all parts of their portfolio. However, they are grappling with...

February 28, 2020 | By Maxine Nelson

Culture & Governance

Risk and Regulation at Gemini Trust Co., Inside and Out

Market data company CryptoCompare maintains a ranking of cryptocurrency exchanges according to what it terms “a clear methodology to assess risk.” Released on February 12, the latest iteration of the...

February 21, 2020 | By Ted Knutson and Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

Economic Risks Are Up Front in World Economic Forum Survey

For the first time in the 15 years of the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report surveys, the five highest-ranking risks in likelihood over a 10-year horizon are environmental: extreme weather,...

February 7, 2020 | By Katherine Heires

Culture & Governance

Regulatory Change, Economy and Talent Are Top Risk Issues in Protiviti-N.C. State Survey

Corporate executives are contending with so many potential risks that, depending on fast-changing economic and market developments, some have to take priority over others. Among those bubbling to the...

January 17, 2020 | By Katherine Heires

Culture & Governance

Enterprise Risk: The Need for an Integrated Approach

New technologies have broadened and sped up the communication and analysis of data, changing the nature of risks that companies face and how to mitigate them. Banks, for example, have long tended to...

January 10, 2020 | By John Hintze

Culture & Governance

AEI Economist: Address Climate Change and Income Inequality Together

Climate change and income inequality are issues usually associated with progressive political agendas and denied or demurred on the conservative side. Aparna Mathur, resident scholar at the...

January 10, 2020 | By Ted Knutson

Culture & Governance

7 Key Elements of Effective ERM

If a company wants to minimize the effects of risk on its capital and earnings, reputation and shareholder value, it must implement a comprehensive enterprise risk management (ERM) program. A...

January 3, 2020 | By John Thackeray

Culture & Governance

Non-Financial Risks: Developments in Accounting

We intuitively understand accounting measures such as profit or equity. The corporate world places great reliance on them. For example, they are used to communicate and evaluate a firm's financial...

December 13, 2019 | By Peter Hughes

Culture & Governance

Europe's Sustainable-Finance Action Plan Gets U.S. Exposure

More than a year and a half since the European Commission published its Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth, an EU official told a financial industry gathering in Washington, D.C., that he is...

November 27, 2019 | By Ted Knutson

Culture & Governance

Climate Risk Reality: A Wake-Up Call for Risk Managers

Contrary to the current contemporary narrative around climate change, from a risk manager's perspective, the scientific and political argument around climate change is now over. Governments and...

November 1, 2019 | By David Kelly

Culture & Governance

Fraud Risks Climb in Number and Complexity, Kroll Survey Indicates

Cybersecurity, geopolitics, third-party relationships, social media and reputational threats factor into a fast-changing, increasingly complex risk landscape, as revealed in the Kroll Global Fraud...

October 18, 2019 | By Katherine Heires

Culture & Governance

Prevention Through Prediction: How Technology, Data Analysis and People Can Build Intelligent Resilience

While resiliency has always been a cornerstone of risk management in financial services, the focus has shifted considerably over the past two decades, from an emphasis on business continuity and...

October 4, 2019 | By Andrew Gray

Culture & Governance

Banks Rally Behind UN Sustainability Campaign

With the financial consequences of climate change increasingly capturing boardroom attention, and under the spotlight of Climate Week events coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly...

October 1, 2019 | By Katherine Heires

Culture & Governance

Can the Financial Industry Make Us Climate-Resilient?

That the world is warming is increasingly undeniable, and by all observations and credible scientific projections, the consequences of this warming will grow more far-reaching and disruptive to our...

September 27, 2019 | By Stacy Swann and Alan Miller

Culture & Governance

Global Warming Tops a Ranking of Extreme Risks

Global temperature change ranks No. 1 on a list of 15 extreme risks compiled by the Thinking Ahead Institute (TAI). The institute, a not-for-profit outgrowth of Willis Towers Watson Investments'...

September 24, 2019 | By Ted Knutson

Culture & Governance

The Power of a Positive Culture

Senior management “cannot anticipate every problem,” Jacob Rosengarten points out. That is where a well-functioning corporate culture, relying on the observations and actions of “people who are...

August 23, 2019 | By Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

Data and Technology Are Reshaping the Risk Profession

To assess how rapidly the field of risk management - and the skills required of risk professionals - are changing, Frank Roncey looks through the lens of data. “The way we understand data, the way we...

August 16, 2019 | By Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

Climate Change: Evolution and Impact on Financial Risk Management

The presidential nominee of the European Commission recently endorsed the idea of creating a European bank focused on climate change, and the European Union is trying to figure out how to eliminate...

August 9, 2019 | By Robert Sales

Culture & Governance

For William Dudley, the Financial Crisis Yielded More Than Just Policy Insight

Like other central bankers and regulatory officials who had a front-row seat on the financial crisis and contributed to the recovery efforts that followed, William C. Dudley took certain lessons from...

July 26, 2019 | By Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

ESG: Risks, Opportunities and Benefits

In today's world, it's becoming impossible to ignore the rapid shifts taking place in relation to the environment, society and corporate governance. Business models are evolving, as are the wide...

July 26, 2019 | By Robert B. Hirth and Rodney Irwin

Culture & Governance

The Evolution of Climate Risk Management in Financial Services

The treatment of climate risk at financial institutions has changed significantly over the past five years. Whereas it used to be viewed mostly as a reputational risk that could be addressed through...

June 28, 2019 | By Jo Paisley and Maxine Nelson

Culture & Governance

Comments Invited on 'Three Lines of Defense' Update

The Institute of Internal Auditors has opened a public comment period on proposed updates of the risk management and control model known as the three lines of defense. A milestone in a year-long...

June 21, 2019 | By Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

Rising Through the Regions: John Turpen's Road to CRO

In 2018, John Turpen completed a nine-year run with U.S. Bancorp. He had risen to chief risk officer of corporate and commercial banking at the Minneapolis-based banking company after previous stints...

May 10, 2019 | By Jeffrey Kutler

Culture & Governance

A CRO on the Human-AI Balance

Risk professional jobs will be saved - or less jeopardized - by the superiority of humans over artificial intelligence and machine learning in dealing with behavioral matters, according to State...

April 18, 2019 | By Ted Knutson

Culture & Governance

ESG for Bankers: A Risk-Based Approach

In response to a growing body of evidence that competitive returns and societal benefits are not mutually exclusive, investor demand for socially conscious investments has surpassed $20 trillion in...

March 8, 2019 | By Desiree O'Niell

Culture & Governance

Ken Phelan Steps Down as U.S. Treasury Chief Risk Officer

Ken Phelan, who in November 2014 became the first chief risk officer of the U.S. Treasury Department, stepped down as of early February. His departure also created a vacancy at the Office of...

February 15, 2019 | By Ted Knutson

Culture & Governance

Geopolitical Risks on the Rise, World Economic Forum Finds

The World Economic Forum Global Risks 2019 report paints a grim picture of complex, intensifying and interconnected risks - most urgently “geopolitical and geo-economic tensions” - and a world...

January 25, 2019 | By Katherine Heires

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