'Risk needs to not be an afterthought', Narayanan

The importance of clearly defining audit, risk and compliance to remove the grey areas has been stressed by former AirAsia head of risk and insurance, Suchitra Narayanan ahead of this year’s Risk Forum Asia Pacific.

“It is important to clearly define the roles and boundaries of each function to help risk managers fit better into organisations and enact real change,” Narayanan said.

She also argued that the value and relevance of the role of risk management are critical to shaping and moving the profession forward.

Narayanan is a passionate advocate of StrategicRISK’s #ChangingRisk campaign and believes making risk management a profession via standardised set of competencies is vital in changing the perception of risk management within organisations.

She said risk managers need to constantly improve and assess their communication skills. “I believe that If you cannot communicate to management and boards what they need to know within two minutes, you have possibly lost their attention . I can’t stress this enough.”

Narayanan argued that “risk needs to not be an afterthought” for organisations.

The profession also needs to get better at innovating and embracing available technology. “We are not using technology as well as we could and I really think this is an area where risk falls down. We need to get better at this.”

Narayanan also noted that having clear direction from management and boards will make it easier for risk managers to manage expectations within organisations which, in turn, will assist in making sure risk management is not an afterthought.