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Dealing with
Risk and Working in Partnership
Corporate,
government and civil society leaders need to establish a
more effective framework in order to interpret and manage
the risks – and the perceptions of risk – as part of their
partnership for prosperity and security for the future. This
was one of the conclusions reached
by the co-chairs at the Annual
Meeting's closing session of the
2004 World Economic
Forum in Davos, concluding 250 working sessions over five
days.
“Are we really
seeing the risks that lie ahead?” asked James Schiro, Chief
Executive Officer, Zurich Financial Services, Switzerland,
as he outlined the principal points that over 2,100
participants from 94 countries, including more than 30 heads
of state or government, had focused on at the Meeting. These
included determining the new risks, how perception of risks
has changed, and the new technological tools for
anticipating these risks and challenges.
“The way we manage
risks is the key to prosperity,” Schiro said. However, he
added that society also needs to determine the “right
measures and development to anticipate these risks.”
Philippe
Bourguignon, Co-Chief Executive Officer, World Economic
Forum, challenged participants to consider the different
action points proposed “to move beyond” in the year ahead.
Should corporations focus more on the short term or the long
term, or both, he asked.
How do we develop
more corporate responsibility at a time when businesses are
becoming more global? And most critically, how do we
reconcile the varying speed of clocks between the public and
the private sectors? To this end, Bourguignon recalled what
former US President Bill Clinton had told the Davos
gathering on the opening day of the meeting, namely that
“although we know what needs to be done, we need to adopt a
systemic approach to achieve it.”
Source:
World Economic Forum |
