"If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting."
David Bowie
The art, or science, of risk management
The threats and perils facing a risk manager can be on a huge scale – war, climate change, pandemic, large-scale economic disruption – or on a micro level such as a warehouse fire, electrical failure or traffic jam delay. You just don’t know what’s around the corner.
Therefore the job description of a risk manager, who is required to ensure the livelihood of an organisation by successfully forecasting and planning for any and all risks facing their business, makes for interesting reading. The abundance of skills required to make sense of all of these possible risks, and distil them down into something manageable, involves both a scientific approach – using quantitative analysis, probability and statistics to measure and evaluate the outcome – balanced with ‘soft’ skills such as intuition, past experience, the ability to be adaptive and creative when building new programmes, an understanding of human and societal behaviour and of course, good communication. Quite a CV.
‘Art imitates the objects and events of ordinary life.’ Plato wrote this 2,500 years ago, effectively summing up the ordinary and extraordinary risks, both natural and manmade, that highlight the vulnerability of the world in which we live, and make a risk managers’s job so challenging and also so rewarding.
Artist or scientist – we celebrate risk management.
What are the European Risk Management Awards 2024?
The European Risk Management Awards were established by FERMA and Commercial Risk back in 2016 with the aim of raising the awareness of the risk management community and increase its profile within corporates. They reward the achievements of individuals and organisations who fulfil this aim.
Since then, some of the leading names in risk management have deservedly celebrated their success in their field – and have taken many steps forward in the journey to spread awareness of this vital role to their peers and the greater community.
There are three groups of categories:
Excellence in risk management
for risk managers at all stages of their careers
Training & Education Excellence
for any organisation that provides training or an educational initiative that enhances the role of the risk manager
Industry Excellence
for any business that provides outstanding support to the risk management community.
Watch highlights from last year's gala dinner
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