Stefan Gershater

Risk’s boring and ineffective. The reason you can’t get into your CEO’s diary is because you don’t demonstrate value; either in protecting it, or creating it, and in an era where your own laptop writes more cohesively than you do, the risk ‘profession’ is due a shake up.

But that’s exciting! With a background in science, data science, and 12 years as an officer in the Royal Navy, Stefan’s perspective on risk is that we don’t need a facelift, but a complete re-imagining of what risk is for, how it’s done, the tools we use, and who’s ‘doing’ it. ‘Decision-support’ is probably a better description of where Stefan’s tried (sometimes successfully) to take his risk efforts- in aerospace, energy, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, luxury fashion and now retail at The Cooperative Group.

Somewhat ‘Marmite’, Stefan talks passionately (excessively) about value creation and value protection; the role risk has in those conversations; building new allieships with teams who really help; how ‘it’s not enough to be right’ (risk communication and reporting), and data strategies to support better decision-making, more quickly. The last ten years have been characterised by risk transformations, including risk framework design and implementation, risk technology and reporting, and risk remediation strategies.

If all else fails we can talk about Labradors, fast motorbikes, good food, and even better wine.

make the job worth doing.