RMs Must Communicate To Advance

Management must be educated about exposures, loss control options

Any risk manager seeking to advance their career must capture the notice of top management by communicating insurance and loss control proposals clearly and concisely up and down the organization, a panel of their risk management peers warn.

This was just one key piece of advice a panel of risk managers offered to their compatriots during a session on career advancement held in Philadelphia during the Risk and Insurance Management Society's annual conference last month.

The discussion on “Career Insights Even Ben Franklin Would Get Charged Up About” featured three risk managers discussing their experiences and offering tips on how to go about advancing a career.

Gary Kilburg, assistant treasurer, risk management for Whirlpool Corp., based in the company's administrative center in Benton Harbor, Mich., said that while working hard and spending long hours will gain notice for a risk manager, management is most impressed by someone who can boil technical data–especially about esoteric insurance issues–down to something simple and “management friendly.”

“[Management] may be adept at what their business is, but they want you to make [insurance and risk management] simple,” he observed. “This is especially true because upper management has so much on its plate.”

Christopher E. Mandel, assistant vice president of enterprise risk management for USAA in San Antonio, Texas, offered one experience he had that he said damaged his reputation in the eyes of his chief financial officer for a time at a company where he had once worked.

Mr. Mandel, a past president of RIMS, said he once arranged to discuss some risk issues with the chief financial officer and walked in with a 30-page briefing for a one-hour meeting. Shortly into the meeting, he realized that what the CFO was looking for was not a detailed analysis of the situation but a briefing that summarized what needed to be done. The meeting damaged the CFO's confidence in him and, he confessed, it took time to recover that confidence.

“It's good to show that you know your business,” he observed.

Mr. Mandel noted that risk managers need to understand “who the stakeholders are in the process. Every stakeholder has issues in risk management. Make sure you understand their interest and that they are not left out of the process. Get them involved.”

“You must find your role in the process,” he continued. “You have to ask, 'How do I contribute to the results my company wants to see.'”

Panel moderator Michael Tannenbaum, president of Key Strategies, LLC, in East Hanover, N.J., a risk management recruiter and consultant, noted that presenting an executive summary to management should be seen as an opportunity to share ideas and show that the risk manager knows their business.

“If you can pare down the issue to a couple of highlights, it shows that you did a lot of work to put that position paper together,” he said.

Risk managers need to make themselves available to all levels of management, noted Mr. Kilburg. They should be discussing risks with other executives, engaging them in a dialogue about their business, and thinking through the exposures and loss control challenges their departments face.

Such regular dialogues will help fully integrate risk management into the daily thought processes of every department head, while raising the risk manager's profile and enhancing their value to the company, he added.

Pointing out risks to top management helps them understand that containing exposures involves more than just buying insurance, and starts them thinking about ways to reduce loss potential, he explained.

Essentially, what risk managers need to do is to establish credibility in the eyes of top- and middle-management, he noted.

The confidence an organization has in its risk manager comes down to the quality of communication, according to Mr. Kilburg. He explained that organizations have problems when they don't have effective internal dialogues. Risk managers need to so thoroughly understand their business, in fact, that they can credibly explain it to managers when discussing exposures, he added.

Since many corporations are so fluid, merging with and/or acquiring other firms regularly, risk managers need to understand the different cultures they might be aligned with, and the political implications of an integration with a new company, warned David E. Arick, director of global insurance risk for International Paper out of Memphis, Tenn.

In some cases, in fact, department rivalries can resemble turf warfare, he said. As organizations go through these changes, a risk manager needs to learn who can be trusted to give the right information.

“It can be a political process,” he observed. A risk manager needs to see which relationships work out and be adaptable. “Keep your options open and understand who supports you and who does not, and know who you can rely on,” he advised.

As to ways education, degrees, designations and experience can help a risk manager advance a career, the general consensus was that no single bit of experience or education was more meaningful than another.

Mr. Tannenbaum noted, however, that the value of obtaining an MBA helps to open doors and gives a job seeker a “stronger competitive edge.”

While agreeing that a degree is helpful to open doors, Mr. Kilburg argued that ultimately it is the risk manager's ability to tackle problems that leads to their ultimate advancement. “I like someone who can think in broader business terms,” he said.

No matter how much experience an individual might have, noted Mr. Arick, it is essential that a risk manager has an ARM designation before determining a career path.

Where a risk manager's career begins is of little consequence, said the panel, noting the diversity of each of their own early positions. What is essential, Mr. Arick said, is that risk managers think about where they want to go and that they map a plan to achieve those goals.

Caption for bullhorn art:

Risk managers must make their case loud and clear, while boiling down technical data to something simple so key managers can grasp the program quickly and easily.

“You must find your role in the process. You have to ask, 'How do I contribute to the results my company wants to see.'”

Christopher E. Mandel

Former RIMS President

Special Reports /

RMs Must Communicate To Advance

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