In a City A.M. article, Helen Brand, Chief Executive of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), argued that the recent banking crisis highlighted the importance of risk culture to business resilience and success.
"All too often, risk management is associated with compliance and 'box-ticking,'" she wrote. "Unfortunately, this approach is itself a risk since it causes boards and leadership teams to miss the warning signs of failures waiting to happen. What is needed instead is a strong risk culture, which permeates every level of an organisation."
Brand references a survey of more than 2,000 risk and financial professionals globally conducted by the ACCA, which found that only 57% of respondents believed their organization's risk culture had improved since the onset of the pandemic, and only 60% felt that risks are sufficiently discussed at all levels.
As such, Brand calls for businesses to prioritize cultivating a culture that enables them to deal with risks proactively. "By taking a more dynamic and collaborative approach to risk management, businesses can build a risk culture that boosts their resilience today while acting as the foundation for long term, sustainable success," she concluded.
Starling Founder and CEO Stephen Scott contributed closing remarks to the ACCA research to which Brand referred. "As this report reveals, many respondents across sectors and regions say they understand the risk appetite of their companies, but few can provide evidence that employees are working within it," he wrote therein. "There is thus broad misalignment in risk perceptions and risk priorities across organisations, compounded by the absence of a common language with which risk-related imperatives could be discussed." [Read More]
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