Make everyone a risk manager (Harvard Business Review)

By the nature of their work, the people at The University of California are risk takers, says Grace Crickette, chief risk officer. UC employs more than 170,000 faculty and staff, so aligning their risk appetites with what the system can tolerate can be a challenge. The solution is to put people in charge of their own risks, and Crickette’s job is to provide tools to help them identify, manage and monitor their risks—not to manage the risks for them. A key part of the program is UC’s Enterprise Risk Management Information System, which provides a variety of qualitative and quantitative tools to help unit managers identify their risks and determine where to strategically deploy resources. Value and savings of the program is tracked, and has saved more than $500 million over the last six years.