Airmic launches mentoring scheme to polish up skills

The association said that it has launched the initiative to ensure that knowledge is retained within the industry and skilled risk management professionals developed for the future. The scheme hopes to build on the new-found interest in risk management following the recent financial crises and help the profession to take full advantage of the opportunities it has been afforded, explained Elaine Heyworth, board member at Airmic with overall responsibility for the project. It is believed to be the first risk management scheme of its kind in the UK and across Europe and is part of Airmic’s commitment to support its member in their careers. “Risk management is reaching a new level now since the financial crisis and I think risk managers need to be better prepared for how to step up to board level. There is definitely a call to risk managers: ‘Get out there, make yourself known, and get spotted, it can change your career,” said Miss Heyworth, who is also Head of Risk Management at mobile telecommunications company Everything Everywhere Ltd.hide“Senior risk managers are able to ride this wave but could do more to help more junior risk managers who do not have the confidence or the experience and are a little bit wary of putting themselves forward,” she added. The need to develop the executive pipeline of risk managers is therefore more pressing than ever, says Miss Heyworth, as a whole layer of very senior people will be retiring over the next ten years. There are lots of newer entries to the market who are not yet ready to take their places, she added. Miss Heyworth believes the mentoring initiative has the potential to change careers, enable young mentees to decide how they wish to develop and give them some ideas and encouragement along the way. However, mentors will also benefit from the process, Ms Heyworth said. Learning is very much a two-way process, she said. “Intelligent but junior staff from a different generation, and often from different backgrounds, can have an uncanny ability to ask awkward questions that you may never have considered or to see different ways of doing things.” Mentors may also pick up new techniques and gain new insights into their own performance when they pass on tips and experience to the younger generation, said Miss Heyworth. The mentoring role will certainly develop their softer skills, she added. And these communication skills are actually what make the difference in the careers of risk managers, argued Airmic’s board member. “Many people can do the day to day operational stuff but when you get to board level you need to speak the language of your business. If you are not speaking that language then you are not going to impress the boardroom in any way, shape or form. Boardrooms do not want to just look at risk they want to make sure that risk managers understand the opportunities behind those risks as well as the threats,” she said. “So I want senior managers to be able to give mentees a broader strategic view of risk, which I think is critical.” The scheme is being rolled out at the Airmic conference, where there will be a workshop at 1:30 on Tuesday to give details on how the scheme will work in practice. Mentors and mentees from all sectors and industry are encouraged to sign up for the scheme. This can be done via a profile form that can be found at the micro website http://www.airmic.com/mentoring. Senior professionals will then be paired up with younger risk managers in different organisations to act as sounding boards and give advice. How the relationship develops, and how often they meet, depends mostly on the individuals concerned. But, Miss Heyworth usually encourages a pair to meet for at least half an hour per month for the first three months of the relationship. Each mentoring period is expected to last for about one year. Miss Heyworth would like mentors to have more than five years of experience and be at reasonably senior level. Mentees are likely to be new to the role of risk management. The scheme has already been successfully tested by Maria Trouli, a young operational risk officer at Betfair, who has been mentored since the start of the year by Airmic board member Patrick Smith. They meet about once every two months, but Maria contacts Patrick by phone or email whenever there is a particular reason to do so. “The arrangement is very valuable to me. I am the only operational risk person in my company, and to be able to turn to Patrick for advice and suggestions or just to talk things through is priceless. “I recently, for example, gave presentations in more than one department with different interests and Patrick’s input here was to make me think how my talk would affect other people, to see it from their point of view and to make it more effective. In simple words he made me ask, ‘how can I engage them?’” Miss Heyworth has previous experience of running a successful mentoring scheme in her role as board member of the European Professional Women’s Network, where she has responsibility for UK-based and cross-European mentoring.

Airmic launches mentoring scheme to polish up skills

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