Striving for a risk resilient organisation – a focus on what FTSE companies are doing in practice

Richard Sykes Presentation Slides

Seminar Summary: There is a lot of academic discussion around the subject of risk and resilience, but how is this applied, if at all, in practice? Richard Sykes, a partner at PwC who leads their focus on the wider governance , risk and compliance ( GRC) agenda, presented his perspective on how the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies are adapting their approach to GRC in the light of the financial crisis and the recent high impact risks at BP, Toyota, Rolls Royce etc.

Richard Sykes

Speaker Biography: Richard leads the firm’s global initiatives in the Governance Risk and Compliance arena. He has developed and led our thinking in how to apply the conceptual aspects of GRC in practice. His current focus is on driving the Risk Resilient agenda, with a focus on Risk Appetite, High Impact risk and Behaviours and Culture, in particular post the global financial crisis and the incidents at BP, Toyota etc.. This thinking is predicated upon ‘The Art of Effective Business’, our framework that uses the three pillars of Culture & Values, Management Systems and Oversight to encourage the integration and coordination of all compliance efforts across our business. His role involves having discussions at a board level with both executive and non executive directors around the subject of the practicalities of effective governance.

Richard is currently the global relationship partner for WPP, the largest  Global Advertising , Media and Communications group and was previously GRP on two FT500 clients: ArcelorMittal – the No 1 steel group in the world; and Cadbury– a UK based Consumer Products Group. This role involves Richard directing our overall service delivery in areas such as M&A, tax, accounting support, Sox404 implementation, risk management and sustainability initiatives.

Richard has spent the majority of his career as an audit partner on FTSE100 clients where his industry experience derives from the Entertainment and Media sector and the Industrial Products sector in particular.  He was also the PwC Global Industrial Products leader from 2004-2009, a sector that includes Steel, Aerospace and Defence and Transportation and Logistics amongst other sectors.