Revamped Brazilian association aims to boost risk managers’ strategic role

Brazil’s risk management association has restructured itself and is now looking to expand its presence both domestically and abroad in order to boost the profession in the country. It was with this mindset that Associação Brasileira de Gerência de Riscos (ABGR) organised its 15th Seminar on Risk Management and Insurance recently in São Paulo. The event, which gathered about 1,500 people, aimed to highlight ABGR’s new ambitions as it celebrates its 40th anniversary. “Risk managers must play a strategic role in Brazilian companies,” Wilnner Eduardo Silva, ABGR’s financial director and global treasury and insurance manager at car parts manufacturer Iochpe-Maxion, said during the opening session. In order to achieve such a goal, ABGR has had to start almost from scratch. A new directorship took over the association in 2019 and right from the beginning diagnosed the need to shake things up. “When we started, governance at the association was very fragile,” president Luiz Otávio Artilheiro told Commercial Risk. “It took us much effort to fix that.” The new directors defined a set of clear mandates and attributions, formalised the relationship with providers and started working on a statute to clarify ABGR’s activities, among other measures. “We have also put risk managers clearly at the helm of the association,” he said. The top positions at ABGR are now all filled with risk managers. The emphasis on actual practitioners of the function was evident during the conference, as risk managers chaired all the panels and sessions during the two-day event. Three years on, ABGR is trying to be a more vocal presence in the debates that have engulfed Brazil’s insurance market of late. The association has participated in discussions between the insurance industry and legislators about the creation of a new insurance code that, according to experts, may strangle the corporate insurance market. “We are worried with what can come out of it,” said Artilheiro, who is also the superintendent of corporate finance at nuclear energy firm Eletronuclear. The association is now working to expand its presence across Brazil, adding new companies to its current 100-strong membership. To do that, it is setting up working groups focused on industries such as pharma, oil and gas and petrochemicals. They are inspired by a committee dedicated to the electricity sector that has been successful in attracting several companies to the association. ABGR was also invited by Susep, Brazil’s insurance regulator, to contribute to working groups that discuss the development of sectors such as green insurance and coverage for the infrastructure and industrial sectors. The current leadership has also strived to set up relations with the global risk management community. ABGR has recently signed an agreement with RIMS, in the US, to help Brazilian risk managers gain access to up-to-date technical information about the function. Relations have also been resumed with IFRIMA, the international federation of risk and insurance management associations. Franck Baron, the president of IFRIMA, sent a video message to participants in the event.

Revamped Brazilian association aims to boost risk managers’ strategic role

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