Risk Management at Board Level

Risk Management today has moved from being the topic of top level conferences and media discussions to being a permanent issue in the board and top management agenda. Several new directives and regulations in Switzerland, Germany and EU make it obligatory for the firms to have a risk management strategy and transparently disclose the risk management process to their stakeholders. Shareholders, insurance providers, banks, media, analysts, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders expect the board members to be pro-active in knowing the critical risks facing their organization and provide them with a reasonable assurance vis-à-vis the management of those risks. In this environment however, the lack of standards and training opportunities makes this task difficult for board members. This book with the help of real life examples, analysis of drivers, interpretation of the Swiss legal requirements, and information based on international benchmarks tries to reach out to the forward looking leaders of today's businesses. The authors have collectively brought their years of scientific and practical experience in risk management, Swiss law and board memberships together to provide the board members practical solutions in risk management. The desire is that this book will clear the fear regarding risk management from the minds of the company leadership and help them in making risk savvy decisions in quest to achieve their strategic objectives.

Dr. oec. Vinay Kalia works as an Operational Risk Manager for UBS within Group Risk Control. Prior to this position he was employed at the international Auditing firm KPMG Limited, Switzerland, as manager at Risk and Sustainability Advisory Services. During his PhD, while assisting Prof. Roman Boutellier at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ), benchmarked best in the class Risk Managed Companies, by advising some companies within Switzerland. He is a portfolio partner at the International Center for Corporate Governance University of St. Gallen (www.icfcg.org) with expertise in Enterprise Risk Management. Vinay has attained an MBA from the Nanyang Business School, Singapore. From the earlier part of his life and career, he brings a broad set of experience such as knowhow in Hospitality and Tourism industry in Asia including India and Singapore. Prof. Dr. Roland Muller studied law at the Universities of Geneva and Zurich. He earned his PhD in 1983, and passed the bar exam as a lawyer and public notary in 1985. In 2001, the University of St. Gallen elected Roland Muller as a lecturer for private law, and in 2005, he was nominated as a professor for private law, commercial law, and aviation law based on his habilitation. In 2005, he initiated the foundation of the Center for Aviation Competence at the University of St. Gallen. In 2014, he was awarded the title Professor for Labour and Industrial Law by the University of Bern. Today, he works at the Universities of St. Gallen and Bern, and is also Senior Partner in the law firm ME Advocat AG in Staad/SG in the areas of corporate governance, labor law, and aviation law. He is chairman or a member of the board of directors of several Swiss companies, and is chairman of the Financial Market Authority in Liechtenstein.