Executive Vice Chairman
Sigma7
Sir Richard Shirreff is the Executive Vice Chairman of Sigma7, the first independent, all-domain risk services platform, founded to support organisations facing today’s dynamic environment of complex risks. Sir Richard co-founded the risk management consultancy Strategia Worldwide in 2016, one of Sigma7’s subsidiary companies. Prior to forming Strategia, Richard served in the British Army, commanding soldiers on operations and in combat at every level from platoon to division and rising to the highest rank before retiring from the Army as NATO’s Deputy Supreme Commander Europe. Sir Richard has extensive experience of building unity of effort with different nations, governments, the humanitarian and developmental community together with a wide variety of other stakeholders in order to resolve complex problems. In 2016 his novel ‘2017: War with Russia’ was published in the UK, USA and Poland. It became a best seller and has been translated into eight languages. He is an honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
Building Resilience to Geopolitical Risk
The world changed on 24th February 2022, the threat to the security of the European mainland is now existential. Organisations have to think strategically and building resilience to geopolitical risks is critical. Risk managers need to have this on their radar and be properly informed about geopolitical risks, understanding the interconnections between geopolitical risks and other risk such as ESG and cyber. Using case studies Sir Richard will discuss the importance of stress testing crisis and business continuity plans, giving examples of how companies can build resilience to geopolitical risk using tools such as Business Gaming. “Too often plans [Business continuity plans] are written up and just left on a shelf.” In a Business Game, the organisation sets out its plans and proposed actions while a ‘Red Team’, comprised of relevant experts, challenges their moves in a series of countermoves. “The aim is not to catch people out but to identify weaknesses or vulnerabilities in a safe-to-fail environment.”