Lobbying and promoting profession top Ferma’s agenda

We caught up with Ferma’s CEO Typhaine Beaupérin to discuss the federation’s big areas of focus in recent years and what will top the agenda as it goes to work for European risk managers under a new presidency. Ferma’s key drivers during Jo Willaert’s presidency, which ends during the federation’s forum in Berlin, have been leadership, communication and education. The themes set by Mr Willaert when he took over in 2015 have informed Ferma’s work during that period and throughout the past year, CEO Typhaine Beaupérin told Commercial Risk Europe. When it comes to leadership, Ferma has been a stakeholder in discussions with the EC and OECD on topics such as cyber risk, captives and environmental liability, explained Ms Beaupérin. The federation has renewed its membership of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) until at least 2021. It is the only representative of the corporate insurance-buying community within EIOPA. In terms of communication, Ms Beaupérin said Ferma has increased involvement with member associations and shaped its events in response to their feedback. One such change is the fact that attendance of the 2019 forum is free for risk managers. Meanwhile, the Ferma seminar, which focused on cyber and sustainability last year and will turn its attention to corporate risk and finance in 2020, has essentially become a learning experience, she explained. On education there has been ongoing work to ensure the federation’s rimap risk management certification scheme is a success. Ms Beaupérin told CRE there are a “good and growing” number of rimap-certified risk professional, with the total expected to reach 200 by year-end. She explained that there are now more activities and courses that grant continuing professional developmen points needed to maintain the certification once an online exam has been passed. In addition, further preparatory courses are on offer via accredited training bodies. As of January 2020, Ferma will launch a rimap academic qualification for students that do not have the required experience to meet full rimap criteria. “Students will be able to obtain the qualification but not a certification, because they don’t have professional experience. But they then have a couple of years to get this experience and turn the qualification into full rimap certification,” explained Ms Beaupérin. Ferma now has a partnership with Latin American risk management association Alarys to bring rimap to its members and wants to encourage all risk professionals – including service providers such as brokers and insurers – to become rimap-certified. “We want to create an ecosystem where we will increase the level of risk management education,” said Ms Beaupérin. She explained that feedback from member associations will inform the years ahead at Ferma, with lobbying top of the agenda. “The first priority will be to strengthen further our lobbying at European level, because this is the number one request of our members,” said Ms Beaupérin. “We have political momentum. We have a new European Parliament, we will soon have a new EC and president of the European council in place. So, this five-year term will present an opportunity to promote risk management solutions to meet the challenges of the new European institutions,” she added. The second priority will be promoting risk management as a profession within Europe. “We need to help people to understand the importance of risk management – primarily through rimap,” said Ferma’s CEO. The theme of the 2019 Ferma Forum is ‘Aim for the future: entering a new age of risk’. Ms Beaupérin believes this captures everything that Ferma and the risk management profession is trying to achieve and will inform the next presidency under Dirk Wegener. “We want to discuss if risk managers are ready for the future,” said Ms Beaupérin “Are risk managers prepared for board-level involvement and to be involved in the sustainability of their organisation? Using new technologies and data will be key for risk managers. It is a challenge but an opportunity,” she added. To help deliver on all this, Ms Beaupérin recently undertook, and passed, a Masters degree in association management. She believes this should help her and the federation stay ahead of the curve. “It is important to help modernise any association – to move with the times. That is why I took this Masters. It has also given me some benchmarks with other associations to identify new avenues of growth, to deliver more added value to our members. Running an association requires a different set of skills as you give strategic support through to operational management. So, I wanted to do this course to be ahead of the curve and be able to respond to the evolving needs of our members,” said Ferma’s CEO. To view a pdf version of our Ferma Forum day 2 newspaper click here

Lobbying and promoting profession top Ferma’s agenda

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