Business risk – A practical guide for the boardroom

Bringing together the insights of our Governance, Risk and Compliance team together with input from other experts in corporate governance and risk management, this publication seeks to help shape the risk management agenda of board members. In particular, it will assist chairmen and non-executive directors to hit the ground running in their risk management role, and rapidly ask the right questions of the CEO and the rest of the management team.

Various sources of boardroom risk are addressed within this publication. In some cases, individual directors may simply lack the necessary expertise or experience to understand the business in all its complexity. In other instances, shortcomings in the quality of risk information may hamper effective risk conversations around the board table. The need to bring closer alignment between risk and strategy discussions, and the role of risk appetite to aid this process, is a key tool that the board must use to drive the ‘tone from the top’ on risk issues.

In essence, there are few aspects of a board's functioning that are as crucial to long-term corporate success as risk management. For directors who wish to avoid the mistakes of past corporate failures, this guide will be a valuable reference tool and it will make a contribution to the risk management awareness of directors across a wide range of organisations.