Russia started on the way to a market economy and democratisation of political life less than 20 years ago. For many years of the socialist-planned economy, we did not know about trade and stock exchanges, hedging and factoring and of course, we did not understand the role of risk management.
I was elected as a president of RusRisk 11 years ago when our association was created by representatives of professional business communities, banks and insurance business. At that time, these people knew little about risk management and did not understand its importance for management and business efficiency, but they wanted to learn.
Since then, our main achievement has been an integration of professionals and experts representing large and medium-sized industrial companies, banks and other credit and financial organisations, and insurance, brokers and consulting companies within our national association.
Our main goal is to create a modern services market in the sphere of risk management, as well as to form a culture of business management in the Russian economy that takes into account all the risks. Such a culture will promote the maximum stability of different types of business activity in our country with a balance of interest between all parties (safety and reliability of production, growth of capitalisation of the companies, social responsibility of business, environmental standards, etc).
This segment of the market is being created in Russia “from scratch”, and I came to the understanding that the most difficult thing is changing the motivation of many Russian top managers, shareholders and government officials from misunderstanding and denial of the risk management role in business and management to its effective application.
For the accelerated development and advance of risk management in Russia, we need to be integrated actively into the European and world risk-management-community, first of all using the potential of FERMA, the International Federation of Risk and Insurance Management Associations (IFRIMA) and many regional and national associations (ALARYS, RIMS, AIRMIC, AMRAE, IRMSA, etc.). In terms of the globalisation of the world economy and recent financial and economic crises, this is the only right way!
Members of RusRisk have created a professional standard for risk managers and received approval for the “System of voluntary certification in the field of risk management ‘RusRisk’” from the State Federal Agency on technical regulation and standardisation (Rosstandart). It coincided with development of the project of the all European certification for risk managers. By March 2014 we had already carried out the first pilot certification and training of risk managers for a number of large Russian and Kazakhstan companies. We hope that coordination of our project and European one will allow Russian risk managers to receive national and European certificates.
What have you leaned in my time as president? I am not a professional risk manager, but – I hope – quite a good manager and organiser. I have learned a lot from communication and joint activities with my Russian and foreign colleagues – brilliant professionals in risk management and other spheres, and I am grateful to them for it. The importance of risk management promotion in economy and policy of Russia has positively influenced my business career and allowed me friendly relations with many famous economists and experts, top managers of the companies and managers of the ministries and departments.