Reaching the ERM Masses

About 10 years ago I started the PhD program at Lund University in Sweden. On my desk I had, what at the time seemed vague, a research proposal my supervisor had written to get funding for the project “Risk Management and Corporate Performance.” I also had a heavily highlighted and tabbed book called The Risk Management Process: Business Strategy and Tactics by Christopher Culp (2001). Little did I know that three words, “enterprise risk management”, mentioned only twice in the chapter proposing a “research project on the organizing and managing of corporate risk management programs”, my supervisor, and Culp’s book would end up shaping the next years of my life. The research proposal is long forgotten, but I use the words “enterprise risk management” almost daily, I still cooperate with my former supervisor Niclas Andrén, and I open Culp (2001) regularly.

Of course, there are people who have been doing “this” (and by “this” I mean some form of ERM-ing) just as long, even longer, than I have; some of those people probably have more practical, more academic, and/or more valuable experience than I do. But I’m the one starting the blog here, so never mind them. I figure it is time to start writing down what I know and think about ERM because 1) nobody has asked me to write a textbook (yet) and 2) maybe there is an ERM lover or an ERM novice out there I can inspire, remind, inform, and/or update. And while at least 95 people have read at least part of my first published paper (because Google Scholar says so – I’ve got at least 95 citations), perhaps I will have more luck reaching the ERM masses through social media.

So, I give you SiloNyx. A blog about nixing risk management silos and replacing them with enterprise risk management. And in case enterprise risk management isn’t sexy enough for you as is, and I think there are at least a few dozen out there who find it pretty sexy, we aren’t just going to nix silos but we are sending them to the Greek goddess or personification of the night, Nyx. Let’s turn the lights out on the old-fashioned approach to risk management, abandon silos, and implement more strategic, more integrated, and better governed enterprise risk management!

Read the next entry to find out what silos are, why we hate them, and how ERM will help!