Selling the value of risk management to the board: Narayanan

Communicating effectively with boards remains a key challenge for risk professionals, according to Suchitra Narayanan, head of enterprise risk at Lazada Group. Too often risk information does not feed into strategic decisions, she says.

”Sometimes when you’ve come up with a recommendation and it ends up being the right one for the orgnaisation, you get buy-in and now you’ve made a better decision,” she says in a presentation as part of StrategicRISK’s #changingrisk series. “But sometimes even getting that opportunity is tough. So how do we provide information that is going to be embedded into strategic decision making, because it is not happening enough.”

One issue is that organisations struggle to differentiate between the risk, compliance and audit function. Another is that risk management is considered a compliance-driven process, just another tick in the box. ”Risk management should not be an afterthought,” says Narayanan.

She thinks innovation within the profession is essential, and that risk and insurance managers have just two minutes to capture the attention of their board and executive management, so should use the latest risk tools and frameworks to their advantage.

“I work for fast moving and dynamic companies,” she says. “The pace of change is phenomental and risk managemnet needs to support that change and be part of that change.”