If you think there is a typical day in risk management, then think again. Risk managers come in all shapes and sizes as IRM’s two recent case studies show.
Abhishek Paul, associate vice president in risk and conduct assurance at Risk Hub India, The Royal Bank of Scotland, says: “I think the best part of being a risk manager is that you learn a new trait almost every day.”
He believes that the ambit of risk is the same across industries and functions, which is to understand a process, identify the controls and ensure the controls are adequately designed, operated and reported. It is also for the group risk committee to take crucial decisions in understanding the risk appetite for the firm and prepare the organisation to be able to face risk exposures in the best-fit manner without compromising the sustenance of the organisation and ensuring that these controls either fail only marginally which is within the risk appetite or not fail at all.
Ola Omoyele, risk management practitioner at OMRA Consulting, says: “As a risk management practitioner who currently operates in the interim space – through OMRA Consulting – across multiple sectors, there is really no typical day.”
However, certain activities are common to all Omoyele’s roles – these could range from developing risk registers, facilitating risk workshops, building and running Monte Carlo simulation models to running risk awareness/training sessions and providing guidance and advisory services to committees and governing boards.
“I enjoy the different challenges and responsibility that come with my profession,” he says. “Analysis remain a strong lure for me as by carrying various types of analyses, I’m able to reduce the level of uncertainties and determine a few more certainties. Having the shrewdness to influence senior management in making very important commercial decisions directly or indirectly gives me the satisfaction of the value being added.”
Both have benefited from studying for and taking IRM qualifications – and they regard them as an essential step to becoming a fully-fledged risk professional.
