Department of Management

“Risk Intelligence: Learning to Manage What We Don’t Know”
David Apgar, The Corporate Executive Board
Wednesday, April 4, 2007, 10:30 a.m. to noon
Funger 520, 2201 G Street NW

Most operating, business, and strategy risks are not random like financial risks but learnable.  As a consequence, managers must pay attention to their risk intelligence, or how fast they can learn about the risks of the projects they undertake. Up to now, managers have had no easy way to gauge their natural advantage or disadvantage in assessing different kinds of risk. David Apgar’s book, Risk Intelligence, provides a simple, ten-point score for your comparative information advantage in monitoring the risks that arise in your work.  The risk intelligence score shows you which of your projects are likely to yield above- and below-average returns and how you can improve your intelligence gathering.  More generally, the book shows how to conduct a risk strategy audit of all the projects you are considering.  These audits produce a visual profile of the risk strategy that your projects imply.  They show you where you are taking on too many new learning challenges and where you are not experimenting enough to stay profitable and competitive.  Finally, the book introduces the concept of risk networks, or the suppliers, customers, and other business partners who can help you manage your risks.  Through the use of risk role matrices you can determine which partners in your risk network are best positioned to absorb your main business risks. 

Biography
David Apgar is a managing director at the Corporate Executive Board and launched the company’s best practices research programs for corporate controllers and treasurers.  He joined the Board in 1998 from McKinsey.  Earlier, he was responsible for numerous M&A assignments as a vice president in Lehman Brothers’ Financial Institutions Group, and for building a framework for bank security sales as Senior Policy Advisor to the Comptroller of the Currency.  He designed the precursor to interest rate relief Brady bonds as staff economist to Senator Bill Bradley.  In addition to Risk Intelligence, he is the author of Relevance: Knowing What Matters at the End of the Information Revolution (Jossey-Bass, forthcoming).He has taught risk management at John Hopkins’ School for Advanced International Studies.  He holds an AB from Harvard, an MA from Oxford, and a PhD from the Rand Graduate School.