Five experts gathered recently to discuss the future of enterprise risk management: Kaplan, the Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School, who with his colleague David Norton developed the balanced scorecard; Mikes, an assistant professor at HBS who studies the evolution of risk management and the role of the chief risk officer; Simons, the Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at HBS; Tufano, the Sylvan C. Coleman Professor of Financial Management at HBS; and Hofmann, the chief risk officer at Koch Industries. The panel was moderated by HBR senior editor David Champion.
Among the questions they addressed were: How predictable was the financial meltdown of 2008-2009? Did new tools for assessing risk give a false sense of security? How do the challenges facing industrial companies differ from those facing the financial sector? Is outsourcing an effective risk-management tool? Have capital structures become a bit too efficient in many companies? What makes a good chief risk officer?