Could you provide a brief journey of how you arrived where you are today?
I started my career in the insurance industry and have since held a variety of senior positions in Europe and Asia for major worldwide corporations. I have accumulated over 16 years practical and managerial experience in the risk management, insurance and reinsurance industry. ARiMI is a professional and applied research institute that focuses on providing learning solutions for organizations in both the public and private sector to implement enterprise risk management.
What does your role involve?
I am responsible for the strategy and overall operation of the institute. I also nurture and maintain communication and relations with our key clients, sponsors and partners. Apart from that, I am regularly invited to speak at international conferences and contribute to the trade press. I am also highly involved in research projects, as well as in consulting, teaching and coaching. My specific areas of expertise include consulting on corporate strategy, organizational change strategy, crisis management, fraud risk management, reputation risk management, business turnaround and risk management system development and integration.
What is your greatest achievement to date?
I would have to say that one thing that gives me the greatest sense of satisfaction is in having helped to bring the industry to a higher level of maturity. I am happy to have been able to help many organizations prepare and respond to various types of crises and business interruptions, and also use risk management as a basis for innovation and value creation. In terms of crisis management, I have successfully managed major fraud investigations involving senior management. I have also helped organizations deal with major accidents and project implementation failures as well as engineered successful turnarounds of very difficult and complex business partnerships.
Which of your products/services deliver the best results?
ARiMI provides professional education and solutions in risk management for organizations in various industries. Our value-add is that we help organizations to address the people side and focus on corporate culture change. Whether it’s strategic risk, financial risk or professional risk, it is critical for organizations to put framework and systemic processes in place to manage those risks more effectively. However, merely having policies and controls in place are not sufficient; people will find a way to circumvent those controls. To ensure that you are truly effective in managing risk is to have the principles embedded in the culture of the organization. Our programs are also designed to help leaders, managers and supervisors who are responsible for or have to deal with risk management issues to better understand their risk taking profile. It helps them acquire the skills to improve their leadership and risk decision making process by introducing them to the most advanced methodologies and best practices in risk management.
What are the strengths of your business?
Firstly, our strength lies in the fact that we are the only enterprise risk management institute in this part of the world. Other institutes focus mostly on financial risk management while we are the only one that covers the ground on strategic, operational, financial risk and many more. Therefore we are able to provide a fully integrated approach to the management of risk in an organization. Secondly, we don’t just focus on systems and policies but deal with the root cause of the problem — the people side.
What are the factors contributing to the success of your company?
ARiMI is lucky to have a faculty of active and highly credentialed practitioners, scholars, skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers and entrepreneurs. All are experts in a variety of industry backgrounds.
What are the obstacles faced in running your business today?
I would have to say the biggest challenge is in changing the mindset of people, something that most organizations are reluctant to deal with. We at ARiMI believe in the power of education to effect change, revolutionizing business designs and improving an organization’s value creation processes. Developing risk management knowledge and skills is a smart and effective investment for the organization. If anything, the recent global financial crisis is a good illustration of the importance of managing risk effectively for organizations and of the necessity of focusing on the people side of the equation.
Where do you see the Islamic finance industry in, say, the next five years or so?
I foresee the market growing very vigorously in the coming years. Nevertheless, there are a lot of challenges that the Islamic finance industry has to address. One of the biggest challenges is in staying true to the spirit of the Shariah, as opposed to merely replicating conventional banking products. As the Shariah compliant market becomes bigger, it will lead to more fragility as vulnerabilities of the system are exposed, and possibly Islamic banking will even face the same types of economic cycles as the conventional market. It is important not to lose sight of the core values and to hold true to the principles of Islamic finance.
Name one thing you would like to see change in the world of Islamic finance.
I would like to see greater unity and coordination between the different geographical markets, as well as the industry finding the right balance between innovation and staying true to the Shariah.