Risk Manager - The Scotch Whisky Association

Overview

Every organisation faces the risk of the unexpected. With the rapid pace of globalisation and the volitivity of markets, the risks modern businesses face are unprecedented, and complex. Whether that is managing the fall out of global events such as Coronavirus, or the outcomes from strategic decisions, understanding the potential for risk is a vital Governance issue for any organisation.

As a Risk Manager, it is your responsibility to analyse and assess the range of potential risks the organisation faces and to develop options and recommendations so the board can make decisions. You need to develop an intuitive sense of what could go wrong at any time, how it could affect the company’s profitability and to develop a range of actions that could be taken to mitigate the risk, or to deal with its consequences.

Role Description

Ultimately, a risk management strategy is intertwined with organisational strategy, and its appetite for risk i.e., the amount of risk the organisation is willing to accept to realise its objectives.

Main duties and responsibilities

The role of Risk Manager involves extensive gathering of data and carrying out investigations to assess the risks an organisation could be exposed to. This will involve determining key risk indicators (KRI), assessing risks in business processes, and conducting what-if analyses to determine the scale of risk. Risks could include, for example, operational, compliance, financial or technology risks, to name but a few.

The challenge as. Risk Manager is developing and implementing the control systems that monitor risk and the development of actions plans for safeguarding an organisations assets and resources. Some measures include defining crisis management processes, designing business continuity plans, designing operation protocols and insurance coverage through to updating business procedures to include best practice. Typically, this involves:

Develop a high risk management program for operational risks across the business and develop and implement a safety standards, work processes, prevention activities, and tools and roadmap, designed to mitigate risk.
Planning, designing, and implementing an overall risk management strategy and process for the organisation including a financial analysis of the impact, should the risk occur.
Undertaking risk assessments, analysing risks, and identifying, describing, and estimating the risks affecting the business.
Identifying financial, safety or security risks that the organisation may face. Including evaluating estimated risks such as costs, legal requirements, environmental factors, and comparing to previous handling of risks.
Establishing and quantifying the organisation's 'risk appetite', i.e. the level of risk it is prepared to accept.
Reporting risk to different audiences, to ensure they are aware of risks relevant to their parts of the business and to individuals to understand their accountability for individual risks
Undertaking corporate governance involving external risk reporting to stakeholders
Organising and reviewing insurance coverage, implementing health and safety measures, and developing business continuity plans to limit risks and prepare for the potential for things go wrong.
Reviewing risk policies regularly to ensure they are compliant with relevant new legislation.
Conducting audits of policy and compliance to standards, including liaison with internal and external auditors
Building risk awareness amongst colleagues by providing ongoing support and training of functional leaders in preparedness of a potential disaster.
Development of crisis management processes and preparation of recovery plans and priority action plans against a series of crisis scenarios to decrease risk factors
Reviewing any new major contracts or internal business proposals
Gathering confidential financial information from clients such as income, assets and debts.
Review methods of operation to determine adjustments that would minimise future risks.
Prepare and management of a risk-management budget.

Skills and experience

As a Risk Manager you will need to have excellent analytical and problem-solving skills. You need to be able to see the bigger picture and to break it down to look strategically for solutions. You need to work in close collaboration with different departments and stakeholders, demanding strong communication, presentation and influencing skills. In addition, you would typically have the following skills and experience:

Outstanding leadership, investigative and auditing skills.
Strong problem-solving and decision-making capabilities.
Strong commercial awareness and the ability to understand broad business issues and processes.
Good understanding of risk assessment models and techniques.
Strong analytical, numerical, statistical modelling and reporting skills.
Outstanding verbal and written communication skills.
Strong interpersonal, influencing, interpersonal and negotiating skills.
Self-motivated, proactive, ability to set your own agenda and a strong team player with outstanding organisational and networking skills.
The ability to handle confidential information sensitively and appropriately.
Resilience and the ability to cope under pressure.

Qualifications Required

To become a Risk Manager, you will need extensive risk management experience, operational and IT technical knowledge and a recognised specialised qualification in the field such as Professional Risk Manager (PRM) certification. You will also, usually be required to have a degree in Statistics, Business Finance, Economics, IT or Mathematics. You will also need to have a good understanding of corporate governance, internal audit, quality assurance, security, regulatory compliance, risk management and data analysis.

Did you know?

Risk Management Statistics

57% of senior-level executives rank “risk and compliance” as one of the top two risk categories they feel least prepared to address.
Only 36% of organisations have a formal enterprise risk management (ERM) program.
69% of executives are not confident that their current risk management policies and practices will be enough to meet future needs.
62% of organisations have experienced a critical risk event in the past three years.

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