Editor's Letter

Mastering Risk Management Requires Empowerment — Just Look at the 2018 Risk All Stars

By: | September 14, 2018

Dan Reynolds is editor-in-chief of Risk & Insurance. He can be reached at [email protected].

The term “empowerment” gets tossed around a lot. And not for the wrong reasons.

Victims should feel empowered to speak out against their oppressors. Voters should feel empowered to throw out elected officials who breach the trust contract.

Risk managers need to be empowered to make the vital decisions that save money and keep companies and their employees safe.

Unfortunately, from our conversations with brokers and others, we know many risk managers are not empowered. They lack the juice, the connections, the will perhaps, to take ownership of the risk mitigation processes they know they need to implement to save property, human life and greenbacks.

The September 15 Issue’s award-winning Risk All Stars don’t have an empowerment problem.

These risk managers, like Pinnacle Entertainment’s Jim Cunningham, are masterful enough to iron out safety training inconsistencies company-wide, driving down worker injuries and saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Like Rosa Royo of the Miami-Dade Public School District, they are willful and masterful enough to tackle a systemic problem — physicians over-prescribing medications — and control it, implementing measures that not only save money but also cut down on the national scourge of opioid addiction.

Like Rebecca Cady of the Children’s National Medical Center, they had the will to govern physicians and educate them on the fact their actions or inactions have a direct impact on patient safety — not to mention professional liability premium rates.

We call them Risk All Stars. But there is another good name, too. These risk managers are risk masters. &

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