Anra moves towards a new presidency
The upcoming national Associates Assembly of Anra, the Italian risk and insurance management association, scheduled for 15 April, will see the second presidential term of Alessandro De Felice, chief risk officer at Prysmian Group, who was elected president of Anra in 2015 and confirmed in 2018, come to an end.
The handover to the new president will be by no means a permanent farewell, but it offers a good moment to consider how the association has progressed during this eventful period, which saw a significant rise in interest in risk-related matters at all levels of society and business.
The Anra that Mr De Felice is leaving today is the fourth-biggest national association by size within the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (Ferma). The growth of Anra reflects the value and significance of the Italian economy in Europe, as well as the greater interest shown by Italian organisations towards risk-related themes.
Anra’s role in Europe has been recognised also through the election of Valentina Paduano, chief risk officer and sustainability director at Sogefi Group, a Milan-based multinational that produces components for the automotive industry and an Anra member, as a representative on the Ferma board.
CRE Italia’s Maria Moro interviewed Mr De Felice about his time as president for our new Italian monthly newsletter.
Maria Moro (MM): What is your analysis of your last six years as president of Anra?
Alessandro De Felice (ADF): These years have featured several different activities since we moved, together with the board of directors, on a path that had already been outlined during Paolo Rubini’s presidency. What characterised these recent years and the workgroups we created has been the acceleration in planning and completing programmes, and a sharp dedication to achieving goals.
The first element that I believe is particularly relevant is the important change in our policy on membership requirements. This followed our decision to spread risk culture by widening the type of individuals and organisations that could join. At the end of 2014, Anra had 146 associate members. Now there are 655, including 130 members without voting rights.
Our growth has relied on new or enhanced projects. We have worked on communications, education and sponsorship paths. To make all of this a reality, we enhanced the structure of our office, with a new headquarters and the reorganisation of our staff. Our communication activities have reached a new level through the registration of the www.anra.it website as a publication, and with a bi-monthly newsletter. The wider distribution of our content, helped by a press agency, has been focused on understanding current events in relation to business risk and making statements about important matters, position papers, studies and research. This is all focused on spreading risk management culture.
MM: Recently, Ferma and CRE gave Anra the European Risk Management Award for Risk Training and Education Initiative of the Year. Has the development of training and education through your Anra Learning Path (ALP) programme been another crucial area of focus for the association during your presidential term?
ADF: Education is one of the most important activities for Anra nowadays and it is vital to spreading the risk culture within organisations. Our first step has been to provide such a service directly and professionally, by making use of qualitative resources and through the contribution of university professors.
Our training activities have been developed together with the Ferma Rimap accreditation scheme, so that, today, our ALP course is accredited by Rimap as well as the ISO 9001 certification. Our educational offer consists of a multi-level path, structured to provide the technical competences and soft skills needed for the risk management profession.
These institutional activities have then been paired with a continuous education programme that includes the workshops and webinars we create together with our partners, during which specific subjects are considered in further details. The attendance is always high and, I have to say that, because the pandemic does not allow in-person meetings, these events have become a new form of activity for the association.
MM: What changes have occurred in Italy in the approach towards risk management during your time as Anra president?
ADF: Some 96% of organisations in Italy are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which naturally struggle to adopt risk management systems on their own. Within more structured companies, we have, however, witnessed, first and foremost, a gradual shift from insurance management to risk management, and a strong move towards the adoption of ERM systems.
Anra has worked to respond to such needs. We have followed the development of risk management in the field of governance to support the evolution of our associates. More recently, our activity has been focused on sustainability as it rapidly rises up the corporate agenda. This will continue to be to be a focus in future.
Thanks to our activity, Anra is an important and recognised stakeholder that is routinely consulted about risk management and acknowledged as an authoritative source in the wider Italian business and political community. The increase in members has brought new resources and a high degree of quality to the internal dialogue and membership experience.
MM: What has changed in recent years, both within risk management and in the relationship with the insurance sector that has become increasingly important as the market has hardened so significantly?
ADF: As professionals, risk managers have increased their strategic roles within the companies in which they operate. This has been accelerated by significant developments within corporate governance in recent years. Today, the boards of directors increasingly ask for reports on risks that are strategically aligned with the sustainability of the company and tailored to the corporate business model. Within such a context, risk managers are nowadays a part of the decision-making at large companies.
We have also witnessed the evolution of the risk management consultant, a professional that is focused, first and foremost, on the companies that, because of their size, cannot afford human resources devoted to risk management and therefore rely on external consultants.
This is a sign of the growing awareness of the importance of risk management among the SME community. A wider group of professionals within companies have shown interest in the themes of risk management, such as financial and administrative managers, as well as CEOs. Such human resources, and other departments, have made the world of Anra more varied and heterogeneous.
All of the above has fostered an evolution in the relationship with the insurance sector. Risk management has become a common interaction ground between companies and the insurance market, based on quantitative analysis activities. The main outcome has been an improvement in the quality of insurance dialogue and in the relationships with insurance brokers. Wherever companies interact with a risk manager, a constructive partnership, which rarely ends up in a dispute or a controversy, is established. This process has accelerated during the current hardening phase of the insurance market, during which the companies that succeed in mitigating their risks can exert a greater degree of control on their costs.
MM: On what projects will the new president focus in the coming years?
ADF: In the past, the main focus was on shifting from insurance management to enterprise risk management. Now the challenge revolves around adopting ERM for sustainability. We are therefore going to devote Anra’s annual meeting to this topic.
This year we have also embarked on a new path for Anra’s newsletter, with an expansion of its contents focused on technical and scientific concepts. We are currently evaluating some changes within the training model that, following our experience with Covid-19, will be based on a balance between videoconferences and in-person training. To achieve such a goal, we have already invested in an e-learning platform.
A further development line for Anra will revolve around the establishment of partnerships with other professional associations, in order to enrich the interactions on risk questions. It is important to talk to chief financial officers, credit managers, those in charge of IT, security and investor relations and internal audit as well as, more generally speaking, all other professionals that regularly interact with the risk manager. We also believe that Anra may provide significant contributions to more specific sectors, such as health and public administration, while approaching the world of financial risk managers.
MM: Besides cooperating with associations, on what other topcis can Anra open a dialogue with political institutions?
ADF: While Ferma has activated lobbying activities all around Europe, this is still absent in Italy at the moment. Anra took its first steps in this direction by taking a stand on hot topics, such as the impact of natural catastrophes. Managing health-related risks and the national cyber security plan are other areas in which risk managers can support institutions with their expertise. Finally, matters such as taxes on insurance coverage, whereby excessive levels defeat the advantage of having the cover and, more generally speaking, the liability of directors, are two further points that need to be focused upon.
There are many projects, some of which are very complex. Therefore, I intend to share my expertise with the new board of directors and with the next president, should they decide to make use of it.
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