Insights
Heidrick & Struggles: Financial services focus: How the chief risk officer role is evolving in Asia Pacific
At a time when more is expected of companies than ever before, more is uncertain, and disruption can no longer be thought of as a singular, high-impact “black swan” event but rather as a continuum with peaks and extreme peaks, chief risk officers (CROs) are shifting their outlook so they can be ever ready for the next “big thing.”
Richard Wise, Group CRO at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), explains: “Severe risk events that textbooks suggest will happen once every geological age actually occur more frequently than expected, and these events have forced the evolution of the CRO role.” Shivkumar Mahadevan, CRO of Corporate, Commercial & Institutional Banking (CCIB), Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), adds that “from a mindset perspective, don't assume that something cannot go wrong. That is a fundamental change for us, especially in the last four or five years, that we have started to be prepared for.”