Skill Sets to Address Transition

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have highlighted a series of challenges for Risk Managers.

Two black swans that arrived back-to-back created scenarios in which many organisations were left scrambling for solutions that would allow business to continue. The weaknesses and vulnerabilities that emerged have given us the opportunity to reflect on our capabilities and resilience. Diminishing global stability, climate change and a reset of geoeconomic power will all pose a number of challenges that organisations need to prepare for.

If the Risk Management profession is to successfully manage the transition to our future world, it needs to prepare for emerging and unforeseen scenarios. To do this a series of important competencies are required, many of them already very well established, so the effort must be on identifying which are priority competencies and how to put them to best use.

Silos are one of the most serious problems, scenarios where departments and individuals are not working as efficient teams. The attention should be on building efficiency: whose skill sets are we talking about, how can we build efficiency into our processes, and what are the practical considerations?

Organisations are having to deal with cyber risks, political risk, geopolitical risk, conflict, climate change, and many other considerations that require specific information and analysis. Disruptors will be a constant threat and thus the only answer is to merge our in-house skills and knowledge so as to create efficient multidisciplinary teams capable of delivering solutions.