Risk Management Priorities: Joe Restoule, President of RIMS

Tom Field
April 1, 2009 | COMMENTS

Because of the economic conditions, risks to organizations are at a critical high. Risk managers at public and private organizations are forced to make careful decisions on how to invest scarce resources. In an exclusive interview, Joe Restoule, president of the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS), discusses the top risk management issues of 2009 and how risk managers should focus their available resources.

Tom Field: Joe, tell us a little bit about yourself and your professional role as well as your affiliation with RIMS.

My title is Leader Risk Management and I work with Nova Chemicals Corporation out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I've been a risk manager for about 20 years all in the energy practice. I've been associated with RIMS about 18 years, primarily at the grass-root level here in Calgary; as well as I was the former chair of the RIMS Canada Council before joining the RIMS Executive Council and then current board of directors in leadership roles and then ascending to be the president of RIMS for 2009.

Field: Please tell us a little bit about RIMS and what it does.

RIMS is a member company organization. We're non-profit. Our members are corporations located in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Japan. In all, we have approximately 10,500 member companies. RIMS, through its organization, we are headquartered in New York City . We have a staff of approximately 58 people, and we provide products and services for risk managers from the neophyte to the very senior and seasoned risk manager.

Field: What would you say are RIMS' top agenda items this year?

What I'm proposing is that risk managers get themselves out of their comfort zone by learning new skills or, you know, providing new tools or skill sets that will allow them to grow during these recessionary times. So given that theme, some of my specific objectives for RIMS in 2009 are to develop an international strategy and implementation plan. Most of our members are going global and have operations in foreign countries. So we're looking at how we could best support them in those countries in which they're active. We want to continue fostering the enterprise risk management practice and focus a little more strategically in that area. We also are going to continue to address the needs of our memberships. We have recently done a RIMS member satisfaction survey, and we are taking what we've learned from the feedback of constituents and implementing that in our planning prose effort, 2009-2010.

Field: We see the economic conditions. We see the threat environment—both the external threat, but increasingly so, the insider threat. Given that, the economic conditions and the threat environment, what do you see right now as the top risks to the private and the public sectors ?

Well, I think the top risks will be being able to manage your risks during these recessionary times. So a lot of focus is going back to our basic processes, and that is risk identification. So continue to do the risk mapping within our corporations, to develop the risk profile, look for the uncertain, look for the risks that you probably felt would never ever appear. Don't slight those. So after you've done your risk mapping, go back and look at what the consequences of those risk scenarios might be. Then look for risk-mitigation techniques, and then lastly look at what how these risks might be financed and how you as the risk manager may provide both insurance and non-insurance products that might be able to help the corporation finance these undesirable outcomes.

Field: Resources are tight. Where should risk managers focus their available resources?

The risk identification process. I think by working with the business leaders within the corporations to identify potential risks or threats that could impair the financial wherewithal of the corporation. That to me would be the number-one focus.

Field: Where can security and risk management leaders turn to for guidance in best practices in some of these critical issues that we've talked about?

I think it's very well worth mentioning our annual conference and exhibition that will be held in Orlando this year. I believe that risk practitioners will be challenged when they attend a conference. At our conference, the risk community turns to us for access to current information, education, peer exchange, and advocacy. So it allows them to gather the necessary information and tools that will help them stabilize and secure their risk management programs, particularly within these times. For example, just to give you an idea, we have 15 enterprise risk management programs at our conference that are designed to assist the practitioner from just getting started to developing models and loss-scenario modeling to assist them in their endeavors. We will also be focusing on business continuity planning. So I think there's some really good information, and with respect to just the financial situation, we have some very specific programs that your audience and my fellow risk practitioners might be interested in.

Field: Do you find that these risk-management issues tend to transcend specific vertical industries so that someone coming in from, you know, outside the financial services or the public sector, really can rise above sort of industrial concerns and speak to common issues?

Yes, and I think that what I've told you applies to whether or not you're the risk manager of a financial institution or an insurance company, or a utility, or a manufacturing, or a retail. Yes, I believe all of these issues remain constant.

Tom Field is the editorial director for CUInfoSecurity. Reprinted with permission.