The fifth annual conference of the Cass-Capco Institute on Risk will take place on 19 April 2012 at Cass Business School, part of City University London. The event is a unique opportunity for leading practitioners and academics to debate ongoing changes in risk management and industry responses to regulation as the world looks for continued recovery from the financial crisis. Developing more effective risk management processes in financial institutions has been a key and continued part of the response to the financial crisis.

Speakers at the conference include world authorities on risk from both the academic and business communities. Additionally, the conference also offers five discussion panels on the following topics: economic risk, financial risk management, regulatory risk, CCP alternatives and potential unintended consequences of government sponsored clearing and operational risk. The conference will address many of the risk-related issues featured in the latest issue of The Capco Institute’s Journal of Financial Transformation.

Stephen Vinnicombe, Capco Partner and UK Finance, Risk and Compliance Lead said: “Banks and investment firms are under continued pressure to monitor and improve the quality of their risk management. While significant efforts have been made in this area, Capco and Cass believe that the debate between industry practitioners and leading academics will yield further insights to the increasingly complex environment, better positioning the industry to navigate regulatory requirements and drive competitive advantage.”

Richard Gillingwater CBE, Dean of Cass Business School said: “As a leading provider of business education specialising in the financial sector, Cass Business School maintains risk management and assessment at the heart of its teaching and research. This event brings together practitioners and academics to respond to industry challenges and develop best practice ideas. The continuing partnership between Cass and The Capco Institute further establishes Cass’s reputation as a thought leader in the higher levels of financial regulation.”

Source:   www.top-consultant.com

Protiviti Inc., a global consulting firm, has strengthened its London-based Business Operations Improvement team with five senior hires. Protiviti’s Business Operations Improvement team is led by Managing Director Peter Richardson and provides consultancy for management teams looking to maximise the operational effectiveness of their companies both through back office efficiencies and front office sales and customer management.

Peter Richardson, Managing Director, Protiviti UK said: “Our Business Operations Improvement team designs and delivers new operating models for businesses, particularly in the financial services sector. These new appointments boost our skillset and experience significantly, and we look forward to developing the team still further in the near future. The difficult economic and regulatory situation faced by all businesses in the UK means that there are plenty of opportunities for improvement.”

Protiviti welcomes the following professionals:

John Harvie, Director is a financial services sector specialist with an emphasis on insurance who has worked both as a consultant and as a change leader. His focus has been on large scale change through strategy definition, business plan preparation, business case development, business/operating model design, solutions selection, solution build and implementation.

Alan Mcfarlane, Director spent 12 years working in retail and FMCG businesses before moving into consulting, where he has more than eight years’ experience. He has worked extensively in the retail banking and not-for-profit sectors as well as the engineering industry. He has delivered major programmes of work ranging from implementation of finance systems, through the design of complete operating models, to the delivery of entire business transformation projects.

Richard Boyce, Associate Director has led significant business transformation programmes for many blue chip insurance clients. Using his extensive experience in IT, operations and change management consulting, Richard provides programme management and target operating model expertise to business transformation programmes. Richard focuses on the life and general insurance sectors where he has run programmes across and within all major operating and support functions.

Derek Cummings, Associate Director Throughout his career, Derek has worked with a wide variety of organisations, predominantly in the financial services industry. His focus is on working closely with senior business managers to gain an understanding of their current and future strategy to inform, shape and develop pragmatic solutions. Over the years, Derek has provided board level input and advice to global companies within both the retail banking and insurance industries

Elise Trenerry, Senior Manager has specialized for the last four years as a consultant in people and change consulting focusing on financial services and private sector markets. Before that Elise spent 18 years in a variety of roles at HBOS, before working as an independent contractor. Elise is a qualified HR professional with 15 years’ experience in a broad range of HR roles and has worked across a number of HR disciplines, including change management, employment law, leadership development, resourcing and talent management.

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

KPMG has announced the appointment of Paul Evans as a Director in its Risk Consulting practice. Evans will be one of the key people leading KPMG’s initiative to help clients to ensure risk strategy is clearly flagged on companies’ boardroom agenda.

Evans, who began his career in the Royal Navy, joins KPMG from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (‘SOCA’) where he was the Executive Director for Intervention with responsibility for shaping and establishing a new approach to organised crime He was also responsible for leading SOCA’s international network, its asset recovery and financial crime portfolios, as well as its national cyber crime team. He also helped establish co-operation with the private sector through the provision of timely and accurate intelligence, as well as advising Government Ministers on asset recovery, economic crime and the design of the proposed National Crime Agencies.

Evans’ previous role was Chief Investigation Officer at HM Revenue and Customs where he had responsibility for the conduct of all HM Customs and Excise criminal investigation and asset recovery casework.

Adam Bates, UK head of Risk Consulting at KPMG commented: “I am delighted to welcome Paul to KPMG. His background and experience mean that he is uniquely placed to advise businesses on the significant challenges they face. In particular, it is boards’ desire to integrate effective risk management with strategy which is critical for an organisation’s long-term growth, value and sustainability. Paul’s background means he is also able to stress-test an organisation’s ability to make appropriate decisions when under extreme pressure.

“Our Risk Consulting business continues to rapidly expand and, as the recent promotions demonstrate, our commitment to the diversity of our people remains incredibly strong.”

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

Deloitte, the business advisory firm, has announced the promotion to partner of Morag Childs, Gareth James, Alex Petsopoulos and Chris Recchia to its Enterprise Risk Services team. Deloitte’s Enterprise Risk Services practice advises clients on complex risk and control issues, and comprises 1,000 professionals across the UK.

Deloitte’s UK and EMEA lead partner for Enterprise Risk Services, Simon Owen, commented: “The extensive and specialist client service experience that Morag, Gareth, Alex and Chris have is second to none. We are confident that as new partners, each will continue to excel in their respective areas of expertise.”

Deloitte has promoted a total of 63 new partners across its four key business areas – audit, tax, consulting and corporate finance – and in offices throughout the UK and in Switzerland.

Morag Childs specialises in providing internal audit and risk management services to businesses in both the corporate and public sectors. In the last 13 years, Morag has worked with major corporates in the retail, electrical goods, engineering and manufacturing sectors. She has also advised a range of public sector clients including government departments, non departmental public bodies, police authorities, housing associations and NHS Trusts.

Gareth James brings over 14 years’ experience in delivering data, financial, IT and security assurance and advisory services to clients. He is a lead Deloitte Analytics partner responsible for finance, fraud and audit analytic components of the firm’s risk analytics capabilities. His team specialises in helping clients to use their data to better identify and manage such risks, enhance automation of internal controls and improve the performance of financial, business and audit processes.

Promoted within Deloitte’s UK information security team, Alex Petsopoulos has delivered numerous high-profile, multi-million pound IT and information security projects and programmes for blue-chip companies. Throughout his 12 year career, he has gained hands-on experience in implementing a range of IT and information security solutions to help companies manage key threats and achieve compliance with various industry standards and regulations.

Information and technology partner, Chris Recchia, is responsible for leading technology audit, assurance and advisory projects, and focussing his support across a portfolio of blue-chip clients. Over the last decade, Chris has developed a detailed understanding of technology risk, business processes and IT control environments. He has additional core skills in the practical execution of successful programmes, and helps companies to enhance and transform their complex and ever changing control environments.

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

Deloitte, the business advisory firm, has appointed Simon Owen as the Managing Director of the firm’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Enterprise Risk Services (ERS) practice which comprises nearly 4,000 risk professionals across 27 countries.

Owen takes on this new leadership responsibility in addition to his current roles as lead ERS Partner in the UK and Deputy Managing Director for Global ERS. Simon succeeds Chris Verdonck from Deloitte Belgium practice.

Owen commented: “From cyber crime and information leakage through to ethical and regulatory compliance, organisations throughout the world are faced with a broad range of business, financial or technology risks every day. The key for businesses is to understand how these factors can be effectively managed within strategy and decision making processes. This will help to ensure that risks are mitigated, but, where possible, taken advantage of to create value. Taking on a role that helps companies to realise these opportunities is an exciting step, and I look forward to the challenges ahead particularly working with some of our smaller operations across EMEA who are experiencing high growth economies.”

Adel Melek, Managing Director for Global ERS, added: “We are pleased to have Simon Owen accept this important regional role in our Enterprise Risk Services practice, which meshes perfectly with his existing global and country-level responsibilities. In a business environment increasingly fraught with risk, our clients are both reassured and rewarded by having someone of Simon’s knowledge and experience at the helm.”

Source:  www.top-consultant.com

Initially founded in 2000, International Risk Ltd was acquired by FTI Consulting in July 2006.

FTI-International Risk completes transition to FTI Consulting brand

FTI Consulting, Inc., the global business advisory firm, announced that FTI-International Risk, the international risk mitigation and investigation consultancy in Asia, has adopted the FTI Consulting brand. This brand change is a further step in realizing the global ‘One Brand’ strategy of FTI Consulting and is an important part of the integration of the various FTI Consulting businesses in the Asia-Pacific region.

Initially founded in 2000, International Risk Ltd was acquired by FTI Consulting in July 2006. The acquisition formed the Company’s Global Risk and Investigations team in Asia, which is part of the Forensic and Litigation Consulting practice. Global Risk and Investigations undertakes sophisticated investigations, uncovers actionable intelligence and performs value-added analysis to help decision makers address and mitigate risk, protect assets, make informed decisions and maximize opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. Headquartered in Hong Kong, the practice has regional offices at strategic locations across Asia, including Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

“By transitioning into the single global brand identity of FTI Consulting, our clients will continue to benefit from a pool of worldwide resources and expertise, which is growing day by day,” said David Holloway, senior managing director, Global Risk and Investigations, at FTI Consulting in Asia. “It also is a very exciting time for our existing 80+ employees as the brand consolidation will ensure greater opportunities for professional growth and development.”

Rod Sutton, chairman of the Asia Pacific region, FTI Consulting, said, “This is a significant milestone in the ‘One Brand’ strategy of FTI Consulting. The integration phase is to be completed in our region by the end of August, and, as a result, FTI Consulting will become a truly global company, ensuring its sustainability within a challenging and dynamic market. In particular, this process will allow us to accelerate our growth in this region, where we now have in excess of 350 employees and are one of the largest specialist advisory firms across Asia Pacific.”

Source:    www.top-consultant.com

PwC US and BWise have entered into a joint business relationship to further enhance and expand their collective IT risk management solutions. BWise is a leading global provider of Enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) management software, the integrated approach companies apply to establish strong governance in an organization, through solid risk management and demonstrated compliance.

BWise established itself as an innovative leader in the global GRC platform market through its ability to track, measure and manage key organizational risks, including the risk of non-compliance, while integrating real-time information from supporting systems through its Continuous Monitoring/Continuous Audit functionality.

“We are very excited about our relationship with BWise and the synergies in approach we share in the GRC space. The value of this joint business relationship not only complements our firm, but will benefit our clients as it further enhances our IT risk management solution set,” said Scott Greenfield, PwC’s Risk Assurance IT&PA Leader.

Robert Pijselman, CEO of BWise, said, “Global organizations continue to require consultative, as well as robust, solutions to the business critical initiatives that GRC serves. This relationship with a global thought leader such as PwC will offer clients a rich portfolio of services and software solutions, so as to continue to operate their businesses successfully.”

BWise was positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2010 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise GRC Solutions. All the companies selected were evaluated based on “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision.”

Source: Top-Consultant

I never need much urging to catch up with KPMG and recently got the chance to visit their exciting new premises in Canary Wharf (opened by MH the Queen, no less), and particularly to experience the stunning new dining suite—it’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.

Even more intriguing was their plan to try to convince me that risk and compliance are now the most “sexy and fun” areas of professional services to work on.

“Risk is no longer boring,” explains Adam Bates, KPMG’s head of risk and compliance. “It’s in the boardroom now, it’s in the White House: people consider risk to be a part of their strategy; they see risk as a way to beat competitors.”

He’s got a point, although, you can see how the very events that have forced risk so high up the agenda might be creating as much risk aversion as risk awareness. To counter this KPMG has launched a counter offensive around the theme of “turning risk to your advantage.” This includes a couple of entertaining viral videos, in one of which KPMG employees bravely try to explain various aspects of the practice, while hurtling around the UK’s most terrifying rollercoaster. In the other a couple of probably-not-KPMG employees perform a series of parkour moves on the way to and all around KPMG’s City.

Rather than subject clients to “death by PowerPoint,” the team has even produced a giant cartoon, illustrating the risk landscape organisations face in terms of a sort of I’m-a-celebrity type challenge. Words can’t really do it justice, but I can assure you no kangaroos were harmed in its production.

What it does illustrate is the way risk is coming at clients from all areas of their business: fraud, organised crime, data loss—even where the risks seem familiar, the landscape is changing rapidly. Take data:

“More data was created in 2010 than in the history of the world,” says Bates. “In 2020 we’ll be creating more data than that every day. Just keeping a handle on that is a big issue. Or look at misselling—financial services companies are looking at the stuff there are selling in terms of what might be happening five years ahead—they want to future-proof it.”

Every new opportunity comes with a concomitant risk (and vice versa): the BRIC economies are in theory a goldmine but expose companies to different risks, such as bribery and corruption. Supply chain risk is another area. I’ve never, for example, heard of neodymium, but it is, Bates tells me, a key component in the production of hybrid cars (good) and nearly all of it is to be found in inner Mongolia (not so good).

“That means the Chinese control how green the world is,” says Bates. Throw in a few more issues such as regulation, ethics, sustainability and the demographic time bombs threatening pension planning and it’s easy to see how boards can be overwhelmed by the issues.

“How do we make sure boards understand risk?” asks Bates. “Up until now boards would look at it but not drill down in any great depth. But now the risk office must be at the top table—not at the bottom of the food chain.”

Much of the team’s work centres around compliance, as well as advising and coaching boards and their risk offices.

“Some risk officers are very pushy, and they have to be prepared to back that up,” says Bates. “If a bank’s risk officer resigns, that’s big—people will figure out what’s going on. It’s also the chairman’s role to make sure the company is being run for the benefit of the shareholders, to see that the risk people aren’t being shouted down by the salespeople.”

Bates sees this as an ever-expanding area of work, a view backed up by the fact that KPMG’s UK practice grew by 10% this year, and plans to add another 1000 people to become a £300m business by 2013.

That means continuing to grow what Bates claims is the most diverse skillset in KPMG:

“We have people who are deep technical experts in fraud and regulation and insurance risk but also guys with PhDs in galaxy formation,” he says. “We’ve got lots of techies, people who understand how to build platforms and even former journalists doing research.”

The team even had a “maths evening” recently.

“We take mathematicians seriously,” says Bates. “It’s a wonderful talent, but there aren’t enough actuaries to deal with all the changes in regulation. There aren’t enough mathematicians who want to move away from academia.”

Aware that he needs to attract people whose motivations aren’t primarily financial, Bates is keen to position Risk and Compliance as a great place to work:

“It’s a combination of culture and leadership,” he says. “We’re very approachable and we have fun times—we’re really trying to create something a bit different.”

Having watched the viral videos I’d have to go along with that and in the interests of disclosure I should point out that KPMG have plied me with a free pass to Drayton manor to experience the “thrill” for myself—but I won’t be videoing it.

Source:  Top-Consultant

Capco, a global business and technology consultancy dedicated solely to the financial services industry, announces the expansion of its Finance, Risk & Compliance team with the appointment of Mark Connolley as its UK lead. With its deep industry knowledge and understanding, Capco’s finance, risk and compliance practice is experiencing increased demand for its services as financial institutions respond to regulatory reforms. Connolley’s role will be to oversee the UK FRC practice’s work as it grows in response to this.

Connolley joins Capco from Ernst & Young where he was most recently an Executive Director within the Risk & Regulation practice. He began his career in financial services as a practitioner, later moving into consultancy where he specialised in risk management in both Capital Markets and Retail Banking.

Connolley said: “Compliance for the sake of compliance can often be costly. Financial institutions need to ensure that they implement any new rules according to their business strategy and that they meet commercial, as well as regulatory, needs. Firms need to price and understand risk properly. Many were caught out a few years ago by significantly underestimating the risk they had on their books whilst pursuing growth strategies. Risk is a necessary component of growth, however naively assuming risks into your portfolio without the appropriate capability to assess and manage it, is akin to playing the casino.

“In part, the regulatory response to this crisis has been designed to ensure that banks understand the risks they are taking on. Financial institutions need to take stock of the reforms and ensure they respond accordingly. However Basel III will take many years for the full impacts to be felt and with most banks focused on restructuring after the crisis, temptation may be to put off what is seen as compliance to a later date. I would argue that the central tenets of good risk management are the same as those of good commercial management and that addressing the issues that the regulators seek to address can be aligned with strategic, cultural and system change.”

Ismail Amla, UK CEO, comments: “We are delighted that Mark has joined Capco to help develop and build up the Finance, Risk & Compliance practice in the UK. The team aims to grow in line with the firm’s aspirations as it sees unprecedented levels of demand. Capco is strengthening its expertise in every area of the financial services industry in order to provide the end-to-end service our clients look to us for.”

Source:  Top-Consultant

At KPMG, James will be responsible for setting up a team to focus on supporting investment managers, funds and other financial institutions in the preparation of valuations of their portfolios. The team will comprise quantitative finance and valuation professionals with advanced degrees in quantitative disciplines and significant practical experience in the analysis and valuation of portfolios of “hard-to-value” and illiquid securities.

James, who has both a PhD in quantitative financial economics and an MBA from Henley Management College, trained as an accountant and has nineteen years advisory experience.

He joins KPMG from Duff & Phelps, where he was Managing Director for four and a half years, leading the International Financial Engineering practice. He built up this practice from scratch, providing financial services clients with assurance and regular valuation services.

In this role, James led a team to provide assistance to the European Commission, Director General – Competition, in the assessment of applications made by Member States on behalf of financial institutions with regard to the EU Asset Relief Programme. He also provided expert valuation advice to the Commission with regard to the portfolios of complex assets, including asset-backed securities, corporate and leveraged loans and derivatives, held by the European troubled banks. Prior to this, James was at Ernst & Young for eleven years in London and New York.

Tom Brown, Head of Investment Management at KPMG, said: “I am delighted to welcome James to KPMG. With his extensive consulting experience and in-depth knowledge of advising clients on their valuations, he is an important addition to our expanding team.

“We are aiming to establish KPMG as the premier valuation adviser in financial services – particularly as the demand for more transparency and the robustness in valuation is increasing. The added scrutiny by regulators and investors alike compounded by the issues around complexity and illiquidity, affect the investment industry globally. In other words, whether dealing with hedge funds, funds of funds, asset managers, sovereign wealth funds or administrators the valuation problem remains top of their agenda.”

Karen Briggs, Head of KPMG’s Financial Risk Management practice, added: “I am very pleased that James has joined our growing Risk practice where we have been bolstering the senior management team and broadening our offerings for our clients.”

Source:  Top-Consultant News