Too Late? Risk Tops Board Agendas

The credit crunch has pushed risk management to the top of the agenda for most corporate directors, Financial Week reports. Investors are increasingly demanding that boards better understand management’s strategy for identifying and mitigating threats to the company, and that they question that strategy to protect shareholders from excessive exposure to the unforeseen. As a result, governance experts expect more companies to establish stand-alone board risk committees to better tackle the challenge, the newspaper reports. According to figures from Liberum Research, an independent firm that tracks executive turnover at public companies, 25 individuals at public companies were hired as or promoted to CRO in 2007—a 25% increase over the previous year. And hires and promotions in 2008 are on track to outpace last year’s big bump by 140%. “There has been a huge increase for 2008,” said Liberum senior vice president of research Richard Jacovitz.