Corporate Governance

Having a strong risk culture does not mean taking less risks!

You decide which risks you want and you take them transparently and intentionally!

Many of today’s leaders learned their trade in a rational, predictable and stable world. The leaders, who were successful were courageous and hugely ambitious, risk taking was rewarded. Unfortunately, in some cases and sometimes across industries, the risk taking morphed into “the end justifies the means” or even worse “as long as you are not caught…” This led to scandals and global crisis, that did not only eat up any profit previously made, but created huge distrust in society. So much, that whole professions have been vilified (banker), complete industries are viewed with derision (automobile) and even sport lost its shine (Olympics, FIFA).

The world, we are moving towards with ever increasing pace, is different. First of all, it is characterized by an extreme transparency. Wikileaks, Panama Papers, investigative journalism at its best, make the possibility of being caught extremely likely.

More importantly, the social norms are changing. When in the 1990s, people admired the “winner”, the one, who unashamedly says “greed is good”, today we look for leaders, who have, share and follow a strong moral conviction.

The companies that flourish are the ones with a purpose!

The benefits of a strong corporate governance and ethical leadership are customer loyalty, an engaged workforce, sustainable success. And the increased risk of being caught and damaging the organisation irrevocably make for a strong business case to implement a strong risk & compliance culture throughout the organisation.