Bondi to Queenstown, tales of a wandering risk manager

Background
There are two things I absolutely love – exploring new places and my career in risk management.  I’ve been fortunate to live in some amazing places from Edinburgh, to Auckland, to Sydney (Ahem, let’s not mention Milton Keynes – although it does have some rather spectacular roundabouts and concrete cows!). 

Last year I moved to Queenstown in New Zealand to be closer to family. 

In making the decision, it seemed I was leaving my career in risk management behind.  I don’t think anyone would disagree when I say that Queenstown isn’t exactly a Financial Services hub which is the industry I’d been working in for the last 15-20 years.

I was working for an active tourism company in their accounts team when they announced a large restructure. 

It was an exciting time but having a risk background, I saw that it was also a risky time for the company.  In times of significant growth and organisational change, unless well managed, you will typically see an increase in loss events. 

As a risk specialist, I came on board to support them during this time of strategic change and to develop and implement an enterprise risk management framework.
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But ….
I’ve experienced the drizzly rain in Scotland, the humid heat of Sydney and the burning sun in Auckland.  I know all about the risks of the dreaded midges on Loch Lomond and the man-eating spiders in Sydney (I’ll admit, I over assessed that risk). 

I have a solid understanding of risk management frameworks across a number of countries, however, that experience was in a different industry and in a very different business culture.

So? ….
How would a corporate background work for a smaller, more flexible and agile company?  Would the risk techniques from Financial Services apply to a different industry?

Six months into the contract ….
As long as you are self-aware and able to keep in mind the company philosophy, a corporate background works well.  The key aim is to make sure that any recommendations to enhance governance or implement frameworks are not overly complex.  Continually ask, “will this help, what is the purpose, will it add value?”.  Flexibility and adaptation are key. 

The question “Will it add value” was an interesting one.  In a highly regulated environment like Financial Services you can easily say, “Yes managing risk adds value”, the carrot.  But, rightly or wrongly, the stick of it being a regulatory requirement tends to underpin the “why do we do this” answer - the regulators expect it so we have to do it. 

Because of this and also the maturity of risk frameworks, until recently, the operational risk profession has focused on the building blocks of risk management.   Concentrating on identifying and assessing risks rather than using the wealth of data collected to make truly informed decisions.  How many times have you seen a risk report with the top 10 risks and the trending volume and value of incidents over the last 12 months?  More recently there is a better focus on understanding the factors that drive the risks i.e. what makes the risk more likely to occur or the exposure greater.  To me, that’s where the value of risk management is.

Working in a smaller, more flexible company means that, with buy-in, this maturity journey can be shorter. Does it matter that the regulations don’t cover all risk types?  All companies are vulnerable to risks such as natural disasters, system outages, fraud, processing errors, regulatory breaches, environmental risks, HR risks, product risk, financial risks and strategic risk.  For example, with more online business sales, the Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) has been receiving reports of international scammers targeting New Zealand tourism industry operators. By understanding, managing and tracking these risks, irrespective of the industry you are in, you reduce the chance of a large event occurring that derails your strategic or business objectives. 

When developing the risk framework for the active tourism company, this was at the forefront of my mind.  I wanted to create a balanced framework, a framework that wasn’t overly onerous to the business, one that wasn’t just a tick the box risk exercise to identify risks but one that helped understand these risks. 

In terms of transferring my risk skills to a different industry, granted having worked for the company for nine months I had a better idea of the operations than if I’d been going in cold, but the tools to manage risk in financial services are equally relevant across industries.  I particularly enjoyed broadening my remit to cover enterprise risk rather than focusing solely on operational risks.  This is something that is a lot easier to do in a smaller company.

I know the risk teams across different Financial Services companies regularly get together to discuss the management of risk.  I think that it would be great to get more cross fertilisation of risk practices across different industries.

What next for me – I think it’s time to hang up the backpack but who really knows. I do however hope to continue to use my experience to help companies manage their risks.  ​

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