East African risk managers partner with Serianu to grow local cyber risk talent

In a bid to develop cyber risk talents, the Institute of Risk Management East African region is to partner with Serianu to boost cyber risk expertise. The East African region is reported to be facing a huge deficit of qualified risk managers, while local public and private organisations need critical hand-holding to ensure risks and opportunities within organisations are effectively identified and managed. The new partnership is designed to develop a fundamental homegrown cyber risk management framework for the African context which aims to increase the number of competent risk professionals as well as enhance excellence in cyber risk management and reporting. The two organisations signed a memorandum of understanding that will, among other things, see them collaborating on research, training, community outreach and policy design. Dorothy Maseke, the chairperson of the IRM EA Regional Group, said Kenya especially needs 1,000 qualified risk management professionals annually, yet in the last three years, the population has grown from just under 20 to about 120 today. She said: “Risk management is a relatively new field of professional practice yet locally and globally, there is a major shift by regulators to entrench high risk management standards and which has now become a core reporting requirement by management as well as a key responsibility of the board of directors. “For instance, Kenya’s public sector is guided by the Mwongozo Corporate Governance Code which sets out compliance parameters.” Ms Maseke added that risk management had emerged as a new specialty career, as a result of changing business and public sector operating environments that have shone a spotlight on their governance mechanisms. At the same time, the practice is increasingly credited with identifying great opportunities for innovation even as it seeks out issues that would derail any organisation from achieving its goals at any one time. Threats and opportunities have been a standard in every organisation’s overall strategy for several decades, but now for the first time in corporate governance history, this is now firmly set in the risk manager’s scope of work and are monitored daily. Ms Maseke noted that this way, organisations are also able to clearly assess and derive benefits of investing in their systems and processes. Carol Misiko, the group secretary, added that cyber risk is no longer a back-office IT team issue although they clearly play a vital role. She noted that today's enterprise risk management function needs to be able to understand this constantly evolving risk but also manage, monitor and report on this emerging risk. Serianu CEO William Makatiani said that the two institutions have a common interest in growing the knowledge of boards of directors and senior management so that they have a strong grasp on emerging events and issues that may affect their organisations. “We are collaborating with the Institute of Risk Management to give directors and managers tools and methods that empower them to have a better grasp of cyber risks and opportunities they can exploit,” said Mr Makatiani. He noted that generally, especially in the public sector, the degree of compliance is still quite low and that many highly regulated private sector organisations were yet to get to cross the 50% mark.

East African risk managers partner with Serianu to grow local cyber risk talent

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