I was invited to speak at the Risk Summit, hosted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which took place on 18 th November in London. At the event I was asked to answer the question of how senior executives should view and manage risk now.
The event coincided with the launch of a report by the EIU: ‘Fall guys: Risk management in the front line’. The research, which formed the basis of the report, consisted of both an online survey of some 500 global executives and further qualitative research. It highlighted some interesting points which I have touched on below. I was fortunate to have some of my views outlined below expressed in the report itself.
58% of respondents said that the most important objective of the risk management function was identifying new and emerging risks.
Input from professional risk managers can [...]

When I’m trying to explain the differences between the CEO and the Chairman of an organization, I like to use this analogy: It’s like the two of them are driving a car.
The CEO must be allowed to operate the throttle and steer the car. The chairman sits in the passenger seat. He’s there to stamp on the brakes or grab the wheel if required. The chairman and the board should be consulted on the destination, but they must not interfere while the CEO is driving, and they should leave the actual route to the executive team.

Conventional wisdom is that new CEOs need to boost earnings per share in two years or they’re out. However recent findings from Booz & Company’s latest CEO Turnover report seem to suggest otherwise. Dismissals are happening, but they’re more often caused by board infighting rather than poor CEO performance. Using ten years of data they had collected, researchers Per-Ola Karlsson, Gary L. Neilson, and Juan Carlos Webster found:
For all CEOs, the likelihood of being dismissed for poor performance in a given year is only 2.1 percent. Given this data, it is not surprising that the correlation between stock performance and dismissal is generally not significant. Indeed, the very worst-performing chief executives – those in the bottom decile, whose companies’ two-year stock price had fallen by 25 percent in absolute terms and whose companies had under­performed their regional industry peers by 45 percent – [...]

In January the CEO of Bear Sterns was ‘demoted’ from CEO to Chairman of the Board.   Companies can defined these roles however they like, though I don’t think this was a very good idea. I agree with venture capitalist Pascal Levensohn, who said :
Keeping former CEOs on the board of your company is generally contra-indicated for several obvious reasons:
First, most former CEOs have strongly held continuing views and core beliefs as to how the company should continue to be run;
Second, it is emotionally very difficult for former CEOs to let go of such strongly held convictions; and
Third, people have a natural tendency to second-guess other people.

The chairman leads the board; the CEO doesn’t just report to him, the chairman hires or fires the CEO. The chairman is ultimately responsible for what the firm [...]

Earlier this month Carl Icahn started a blog  to discuss issues facing boards. Icahn has strong opinions and he doesn’t mince words:
“It is the board’s responsibility to hold a CEO accountable, and remove the CEO if he or she is not producing results. But exacting such a measure requires effort and strategic consideration, and boards are often too lazy and/or passive to rock the boat, especially since the company will continue to pay and pamper and even indemnify them under almost any circumstances. Board members receive expensive tickets to important sporting events, the theatre, and are also treated to use of the company’s fleet. Worst of all, the board itself is not made accountable because corporate board elections are generally a joke.”
Is it the board’s responsibility to hold a CEO accountable? I’d say in many cases it comes down to the [...]