A View From The Press Box

A yearning to learn how to break that barrier prompted hundreds of risk managers to pack the room at the recent RIMS conference, where Ms. Ochenkowski’s boss laid out what chief financial officers expect of them.

Ms. Ochenkowski is not your average risk manager. In fact, that isn’t even her title. She is managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle in Chicago, handling global risk management for the real estate and investment management firm.

To become president of RIMS, a risk manager must be cutting edge. Today, that means having a close working relationship with your CFO if you intend to practice true enterprise risk management, rather than just buy insurance and do a little loss control.

“Risk management must have a more permanent role in the C-Suite,” said Lauralee Martin—a double member of the elite corporate club since she is chief operating officer as well as CFO. That pronouncement was music to the ears of those at the RIMS luncheon.

But it takes more than just adding a fancier title like chief risk officer to your business card, Ms. Martin made clear.

Indeed, with companies pressured to constantly innovate and regularly reinvent themselves in an increasingly competitive and shifting economy, the role and responsibilities of the risk manager should be broadened to help CEOs, CFOs and other C-Suiters account for potential hazards along the way.

“The attitude today is you have more to lose if you don’t experiment than if you try new things. It’s a different world of risk than the one I grew up in,” confessed Ms. Martin, adding that “risk shouldn’t sneak up on you if you’re in the C-Suite.”

Ms. Martin cited the subprime mortgage crisis as a prime example. “It was an exercise in risk transfer, yet risk management was nowhere to be found,” she said, asserting it was time for those in the C-Suite to “call on risk executives to contribute more substantially to strategic planning.”

She added that risk managers deserve a seat at the table on compliance demands, reputational risk, natural catastrophe threats, terrorism, supply-chain exposures and other “corporate survival scenarios.”

Now it’s up to risk managers to rise to the occasion. Too many still see themselves primarily as insurance buyers and claims managers, and too few take the broader strategic view a CEO and CFO requires.

As a profession, they’ve taken baby steps in the right direction with the growing emphasis on enterprise risk management. RIMS certainly has done its share, aggressively promoting the concept, while educating those ready to walk the walk, rather than just talk the talk.

But with a soft insurance market in full bloom, will risk managers be tempted to fall back into old habits, letting their brokers do most of the work while they take most of the credit for the falling cost of standard risks?

Or will they seize the opportunity to expand beyond their traditional role? With insurance less of a challenge right now, it’s the perfect time to step up and become a CFO’s most valuable player.

What do you folks think?