Employee Protection Through Covid-19

This article references “Agility”, which is a new risk management book on Amazon by a colleague (Professor Tilman). Covid-19 created economic uncertainty. The book covers the importance of making tough risk decisions in an uncertain environment. As part of the CARES Act, the U.S. government has been sending Economic Impact Payment checks to all living… Read More

Navigating the Covid-19 Economic Recovery

By Robert Phelan, CFA, GARP (www.riskdirector.com , 973-2727-3603, bphelan@riskdirector.com) April 13, 2020 The US Economy is too diverse to have one U-shaped, L-shaped, W-shaped, or V-shaped economic recovery.  Each metropolitan area, each industry, and each firm will have a unique curve because of the strength of its business ecosystem.  For example, we see that New… Read More

Covid-19 Impact & PPP Gaps could result in 2.3 Million Small Business Fails

By Robert Phelan, CFA, GARP (www.riskdirector.com , 973-2727-3603, bphelan@riskdirector.com) April 6, 2020 While we are seeing ardent action by health care workers and supply chain employees, there are major gaps in government and bank processes for small business loans. Ben Franklin said, “Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like… Read More

Covid-19 Recession – Integrating New Risk Driver Data into Risk Models

  By Robert Phelan, CFA, GARP (www.riskdirector.com , 973-2727-3603, bphelan@riskdirector.com) April 4, 2020 A very successful risk leader said, “the data will set you free.”  By that, he meant, you do not need to know fundamental credit analysis because the patterns in historical data using machine learning will reveal most of what is required to… Read More

Track Changes and Mitigate On

By Robert Phelan, CFA, GARP (www.riskdirector.com , 973-2727-3603, bphelan@riskdirector.com) March 17, 2020 In 1939 prior to WW II, the British government created a poster saying, “Keep Calm and Carry on.”  Given the dramatic impact of the Coronavirus, the world cannot carry on as usual.  Recently, I have worked on recession preparation with risk managers in… Read More

Visa buys Plaid from Position of Strength

In game-theory optimization, when a “big stack” makes a bet based on “position,” they have a competitive advantage.  Visa made such a move today with the acquisition of Plaid.  Please see the article on TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/13/visa-is-acquiring-plaid-for-5-3-billion-2x-its-final-private-valuation/ Today, I will discuss why some risks have increased for Visa.  Visa is undoubtedly one of the largest companies… Read More

Risk Management’s Role in Driving Progress for the new “The Purpose of a Corporation”

The Business Roundtable on Aug. 19, 2019 issued a new “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.” When I have done risk management reviews, I have noticed that most risk processes have not been reviewed in light on this new statement.  I have listed some examples in bold within the commitment below by the 181… Read More

Risk Management’s 2019 Challenge

With the return of market volatility, slowing global growth, increasing debt levels, and growing trade and political tensions, it is time to take another look at Corporate Risk Management.  It’s been 2+ years since the OCC Bulletin 2016-05 that formalized the regulatory requirements for the three lines of defense, i.e. Front Line, Independent Risk Management,… Read More

Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon join forces to convince CEOs to end quarterly profit forecasts

Blog Author Email: bphelan@riskdirector.com LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-phelan On June 7, 2018, CNBC provided a platform for two of the most successful CEO’s, Warren Buffett and Jaime Dimon, to influence other CEOs to end quarterly profit forecasts (Moyer).  No one can dispute that these two men are great leaders and great investors.  In fact, I am… Read More

Risk Mitigation for Facebook with Questions for Advertisers/Investors

Poor internal controls, political impacts, and lack of data usage transparency at Facebook have elevated privacy concerns for regulators, advertisers, and investors globally. The broad use of social media has desensitized most Americans to the risk of exposing vast amounts of personal information to companies like Facebook and Google. Will this event materially harm Facebook? Facebook… Read More