INTHEBLACK August 2022 - Magazine - Page 45
After a challenging few years, organisations
are realising that risk management is essential
not just for avoidance of or mitigating threats,
but also for performance and growth. How is
risk best managed, and what does a good risk
management framework look like?
STORY CHRIS SHEEDY
AT A
GLANCE
Using a framework
to manage risk and
uncertainty helps
organisations make
informed decisions.
Risk can be framed as
positive and negative.
Risk brings opportunity
and without it, much of
the financial sector
wouldn’t exist.
There are three primary
influencers of risk today:
climate change,
technology, and global
interconnection.
O
ne of Manjuni Gregory’s most important
responsibilities as risk manager during
induction sessions at the Australian Office
of Financial Management – a federal
government entity within the Treasury portfolio – is
to help new staff define the concept of risk.
For staff at an agency that has as its core
responsibility the management of the Australian
Government’s debt portfolio, the idea of risk could be
overwhelming. Yet the worst possible outcome would
be for staff to find the concept too vast, and therefore
avoid ever engaging with it.
“What I say to our new starters is that we are here
to deliver certain objectives for the organisation,” says
Gregory, who is also the ACT chapter president of the
Risk Management Institute of Australasia.
“I begin by defining those objectives. Then, risk is
simply what could potentially help or inhibit us from
achieving those objectives. Proactively managing
for uncertainty helps the organisation make betterinformed decisions.”
There is increasing focus on upside risk, Gregory
says. These are opportunities that might assist in the
organisation’s achievement of its goals, such as new
business streams, different supplier arrangements or
intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au August 2022 45