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Introduction Chief Risk Officer
The Chief Risk Officer (CRO) of a firm is the executive accountable for assessing and mitigating significant competitive, regulatory, and technological threats to a firm’s capital and earnings. The CRO roles and responsibilities vary depending on the size of the organization and industry. The CRO works to ensure that the firm is compliant with government regulations, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, and reviews factors that could negatively affect investments. Typically, the CRO is responsible for the firm’s risk management operations, including managing, identifying, evaluating, reporting  and overseeing the firm’s risks externally and internally  to the organization and works diligently with senior management such as Chief Executive officer and Chief Financial Officer.

The role of the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) is becoming increasing important in financial, investment, and insurance sectors. According to Watson, the majority of CRO’s agreed that having only exceptional analytical skill is not sufficient. The most successful CRO’s are able to combine these skills with highly developed commercial, strategic, leadership and communication skill to be able to drive change and make a difference in an organization. CROs typically have post graduate education with over 20 years of experience in accounting, economics, legal or actuarial backgrounds.

A business may find a risk acceptable; however, the company as a whole may not. CROs need to balance risks with financial, investment, insurance, personnel and inventory decisions to obtain an optimum level for stakeholders. According to a study by Morgan McKinley, a successful CRO must be able to deal with complexity and ambiguity, and understand the bigger picture.