Cometh the CRO

According to a survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit:

45 percent of companies have already appointed a CRO or equivalent, although the majority of them are concentrated in the financial services sector. However, the role is set to become more commonplace in other industries, with 24 percent of all firms planning to appoint a CRO in the next two years.

Interestingly, respondents identified regulatory risk as one of the top two threats to global business, along with reputational risk. (See "The rise and rise of reputational risk" at this Blog site).

The research indicates that top risk managers now play a central role in co-ordinating their firm's response to an unprecedented range of threats. The main benefit of appointing a CRO, according to 52 percent of executives in the survey, is that they can expand risk management to address more risks.

We (Datasouth Corporate) have long since held that the risk professional must undertake to enhance corporate decision making within their organisation, and to truly integrate "risk" from the project to the boardroom. The report supports this when it states:

They (the CRO) also enable the business to make better investment decisions, in particular by bringing a more effective approach to measuring and comparing risk and reward.

Further on it comments:

Sixty one percent of respondents believe that the ability to understand broad business issues is a critical skill for an effective risk manager.

The rise of the may CRO not quite upon us in all its glory in this part of the world (Australia and New Zealand), but it is only a matter of time . . .