Does your company or organization need a chief risk officer?Some companies have taken the role of risk manager to anotherlevel. Think of the risk management job on steroids and you have achief risk officer. (Think of an athlete on steroids and you have amajor league baseball player.) CROs are executive level positionsakin to chief financial officers or chief operating officers.

Why might organizations create CRO positions? They might add theCRO slot to their organizational charts for various reasons.Establishing a CRO position offers a better chance of thinkingstrategically about risk, not just insurance risk, but otherchallenges, as well. This includes currency risk with foreignexchange rate fluctuations, climate changes and their implications,brand identity, and preservation of intellectual propertyrights.

Historically, these niches have been off limits to most riskmanagers. Of course, in a perfect world, we would expect riskmanagers to address these issues for their respectiveorganizations. In the real world, however, risk managers often arespread thin just sweating out their next property renewals, notaddressing these challenges, which are somewhat 20,000 feet abovedesktop level.