Where have I been? LinkedIn Update!

I have been meaning to write up some articles for LinkedIn... but first I realised that I had not written an article in over 2 years... I thought best to give a quick update on where I have been and what I have been up to! In summary, I am working hard to establish PRMIA's Research Institute, minding my kids here in Cork most of the week and working hard with my clients... that reminds me... if you have any Governance, Risk or Compliance work you need help with in Cork, Ireland or anywhere in the world, get in touch!

PRMIA Board and the PRMIA Institute

The 5 years I spent as the Chair of the Global Board of PRMIA has been one of my favourite experiences in my life. Working with some great people, we have ensured a board made up of some great leaders and visionary of the risk profession. I wasn't going to be happy to hand off this role until an excellent succession plan was in place... and in handing over the Chair to Robert McWilliams, I think we achieved this. With David Coleman now serving as the Vice Chair, the governance of PRMIA is in a good place... and I learned a lot in that experience.... more on that later.

While PRMIA continues to provide great services and products such as the Operational Risk Manager Certificate, as the Previous Past Chair of the Global Board, I have moved onto working on the PRIMA Institute. We've started with a smart but smart team and we are not looking to "boil the Ocean"... but we have already had some great successes including a paper on Climate Risk and the Changing Risk Profile of Financial Institutions... BTW, you need to be a sustaining member of PRMIA to access that paper - supporting PRMIA by becoming a Contributing or Sustaining member is a great way to support PRMIA. Thank you to those have already done this... and a reminder to me that I need to renew my own membership! Watch out for more from the Institute during 2020.

Representing PRMIA Around the World

Now while I no longer chair the Global Board, I am still a member of the Global Board and I continue to represent PRMIA at our great events around the world.

Highlights in the last year have been the FinTech Horizons Event in San Francisco, The Russian Risk Conference in Moscow and the EMEA Risk Leaders' Summit in London. Whether as a speaker, facilitator or attendee, I have enjoyed many events in the last year, but as we'll see later in this update, I may not have as many opportunities to travel for a little while to come.

Risk Management Around the World

Not only have I been able to travel due to my PRMIA position, but I have been doing the same for some of my own work. This has included travel to Africa, the Middle East and Asia related to my knowledge and experience of Risk Based Supervision and my time at the Central Bank of Ireland. Shameless plug... if you are a Regulator looking to be better at using Risk Based Supervision or a Regulated Entity trying to work out how to respond to a Risk Mitigation Programme (RMP) letter, drop me a line, I am sure I can help!

On some of these trips I have been able to take my kids or my OH which has been great... but often you are in an airport, an office, a hotel, an office.... a hotel and then the airport. I use the time to do other work and to move along writing some books including one on Risk Based Supervision... in the end of the day, I am lucky to get to travel and meet so many interesting clients.

But Still Trying to Learn, Including at Harvard Business School

Thinking back to my time as the Chair of the Global Board of PRMIA, I know I learned a lot, but I wanted to make sure I had learned the right things. Last year I applied for and was accepted to the Making Corporate Boards More Effective course at Harvard Business School. I was there last July and I learned a lot and met some great people.

I've decided to expand on this and will be going beyond this first module to get my Corporate Director Certificate - this means a few more trips to Boston, some reading and hopefully some more interaction with my professors on topics like Risk Appetite. I am hoping this leads to some more board positions as well... if you are interested in talking to me about joining a board, again - drop me a line.

Meanwhile in Cork...

Now, that all sounded exciting, but to be honest I spend the majority of my time here in Cork. My kids are usually with me Sunday to Wednesday / Monday to Thursday and every second weekend... although at the moment 12 year old Oscar wants to be anywhere but here!

That said I have some great clients here in Cork as well as in Dublin which I get to work with every week. I have written to a few older clients and potential new clients in the last week or two and I am hoping to expand my portfolio here... another shameless plug, if you have any Governance, Risk or Compliance work you need help with in Cork, Ireland or anywhere in the world, get in touch!

Meanwhile I am working away here and as my first degree was in Computer Science, some of it involves Fintech / RegTech / SupTech...

I am working up some nice web based applications and apps to help with Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, Compliance and so on... more to come on these, but I have already been using an app in Beta to help boards vote on Risk Appetite and Inherent Risk for their Risk Registers. More to follow!

I will still be travelling outside of Ireland, but my focus will be on staying at home as much as I can... that said, I had a great visit to Beijing at the end of last year and COVID-19 aside, I look forward to following up on opportunities I touched on while I was there.