Practical Risk Management: An Executive Guide to Avoiding Surprises and Losses

Practical Risk Management: An Executive Guide to Avoiding Surprises and Losses is a concise, yet thorough, look at the world of financial risk management. The book is written by two senior banking professionals who have managed business and state- of-the-art financial risk in large and complex financial organisations, and who have also been in the middle of some of the most creative developments and turbulent times that the financial markets have ever seen. The book leverages these real experiences to offer useful and practical approaches to managing financial risk. It explores the challenges of risk management and how these can be overcome by focusing on governance and accountability within the framework of a clearly defined appetite for potential losses.

Readers will gain a good understanding of the different financial risks, the various measurement tools currently available, and will learn to construct a practical risk process that is consistent with corporate strategy. Great emphasis is placed on the shortcomings of such a process and the need to learn from historical failures. Through this work, Banks and Dunn hope to stimulate ideas and provide a basis for further dialogue on effective financial risk management.

The risk management lessons and experience which the two authors share in the book is relevant for a broad range of participants from Board members, CEOs, CFOs, senior management, regulators, auditors, financial analysts, academics and shareholders of large, medium size and small financial institutions, investment funds, smaller companies and non-financial organisations. As financial risks have no boundaries, Practical Risk Management will also appeal to executives around the world.

The book, written in a clear, fast-paced and easily-digestible style, is an invaluable resource for all those who want to learn from, and avoid the repetitions of, the frequent financial disasters that abound without getting caught up in jargon, impractical theory, mathematics and formulae.