Strategic Risk Leadership: Engaging a World of Risk, Uncertainty, and the Unknown

Modern risk management as practiced today faces significant obstacles―we argue―primarily due to the fundamental premise of the concept itself. It asserts that we are mainly dealing with measurable, quantifiable risks and that we can manage the uncontrollable by relying on formal control-based systems, which has produced a general view that (enterprise) risk management is a technical-scientific discipline. Strategic Risk Leadership offers a critique of the status quo, and encourages leaders, executives, and chief risk officers to find fresh approaches that can help them deal more proactively with what the future may hold.

The book provides an overview of the history of risk management and current risk governance approaches as prescribed by leading risk management standards, such as COSO and ISO31000. This enables practitioners to challenge the frameworks and improve their adoption in practice introducing sustainable resilience as a (more) meaningful response to uncertain and unknowable conditions. The book shows how traditional thinking downplays the significance of human behavior and judgmental biases as key elements of major organizational exposures illustrated and explained through numerous case examples and studies.

This book is essential reading for strategic risk managers to understand the requirements for effective risk governance practices in the contemporary and rapidly changing global risk landscape. Indeed, it is a valuable resource for all risk executives, leaders, and chief risk officers, as well as advanced students of risk management.

Torben Juul Andersen is Professor of Strategy and International Management at the Copenhagen Business School and Director of the Global Strategic Responsiveness Initiative. He has previously held executive positions at Citibank/Citicorp Investment Bank, SDS Securities, Unibank, and PHB Hagler-Bailly and is an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Risk Management (IRM). Torben has also authored numerous books and academic articles on strategy and risk management topics.

Peter C. Young holds the 3M Endowed Chair in International Business at the University of St. Thomas, Opus College of Business and is Director of the Risk Leadership Initiative. He was previously the E. W. Blanch Senior Chair in Risk Management. Peter has been a Visiting Professor at City University, London and Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, as well as Distinguished Honorary Professor at Glasgow Caledonian University. Among many awards, he has received the ALARM-UK Lifetime Service award.