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Welcome to Rethinking Chess. I'm Keith, executive vice president and anti Group USA and the chair of the board for the Internet Alliance. In this episode we're looking at how risk management is changing in 2026. Risk is no longer episodic. It's continuous, interconnected and increasingly shaping business decisions at the highest level. We'll explore the shift from compliance to strategy, how organizations are identifying risks earlier, and what it takes to manage growing complexity across regions and the associated supply chains.
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We'll also share practical insights from across the Internet Alliance, combining global perspective with local expertise. I'm joined today by Elizabeth Smith, Senior Consultant at Into Group USA and a leadership team member with the Alliance, where she leads the Global Health and Safety Working Group, as well as Chris Trin, senior environmental consultant from Peter J.
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Ramsey and Associates in Australia.
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So why don't we get started? Good afternoon. Good morning to you both. Why don't we have a I'm looking forward to the conversation. So when we think about this right, it feels like risk is fundamentally changed in the last few years. It's always on. That doesn't seem like there's a break. It's just constantly in our face, more interconnected.
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The issues are escalating much faster than they used to. So with that, you know, Elizabeth, from your perspective, what has changed most about risk in the last few years and the most recent years that you can that you can remember?
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the speed
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of light? Right? If something happens at a facility in Madagascar, through social media, through other channels, it begins to magnify very quickly. And it could impact your workforce in another country. It could impact your supply chain performance and it could, you know, impact those people who are buying your product.
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I think that, you know, that's probably the biggest thing. And I think the other thing is, is that risk has changed. It's it's it's tone. It used to be when people said risk without emergency response plans or, you know, risk assessments. And now it's really every part of the company, be it from financial to cybersecurity to environmental health and safety to various components in your procurement area that need to be a part of risk or the resilience plan of the company.
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And I think that changes it when it's just one person and you know, you're in your own echo chamber, and now you've got a lot of stakeholders who are adding their voices and their thoughts, and that can be something that can be challenging for the person that has to manage all those programs and keep them aligned, not just at the corporate office, but throughout their facilities
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Right and I'm assuming that's the challenge, right. Many of these these organizations have a massive footprint, a relatively small chess function. You know, they're no longer just tackling or tackling what would be called tactical issues. It almost seems like it's more strategic in level. Right. So, you know, with that thought process. How has chess been more relevant, prevalent in the boardroom today than it was, let's say, five, ten years ago?
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Have you? Are you seeing that?
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And I know we're going to talk a little bit more about it, but those leading indicators, those things. Tell me my system is about to fail, have become more important and are going up to the board level, not just those lagging indicators.
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How do we do last year? How are we doing right now? What is the forecast for us? Because that impacts everything from budgets to staffing. And I think, you know, failure isn't an option right now when you're looking at all the various things that are pressing on a company from, you know, workforce, you know, availability, wanting to retain your workforce because you might not have enough availability, geopolitical issues, increasing requirements for the supply chain in particular, and then all the regulations.
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I think the idea of
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having all that information put together for the board has become more of a commonality than it was an exception, as that was a few years
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ago.
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when we think about this from the perspective of staying with the board level and the strategic board level perspective, three years, four years ago, going into Covid, you know, I think we all remember, right? We all remember that the chess functions that our client organizations, they were a significant portion, significant element of, of or function within these organizations.
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All of a sudden you have a global pandemic that shows up. And then now it's is elevated to a degree which I have never seen before. And I would be curious on your thoughts on that. And here's a question for both of you. So we think about this. You know, the interaction between the chess function and the board and the strategy of, of these organizations.
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Are you seeing that influence Wayne as a result of coming out of that pandemic? Are you still. Are you still seeing the that level of influence remaining the same or what's your what's your what are you seeing now from that perspective?
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I think. Yeah, certainly. What you were talking about, Covid was a definite step change in that. And just in general in people's understanding of risk and getting that understanding that there's sort of no such thing as no risk, you can never be perfectly safe and you can never be, you know, have everything under control. And as, as you're asking about recently, I think it's it's probably continued on.
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And it's becoming people are becoming more aware of risk and the need to address that as best as you can. And, and so the more proactive you can be about identifying things, the better off you can be
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I think building on that a little bit, is that the idea that what Covid really opened the door for is workforce risk? You know, that idea of now psychosocial really taking the main stage and really driving a lot of new regulations. Sims out of that moment that we were so focused on our workforce, we need that workforce produce the thing.
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And now in during Covid, that's where it's really got a good seat at the table.
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I would say that maybe some of the chess influenced by major players has waned a little bit. They don't have as high intensity as we saw during Covid, but I do think that they're indicators that they built for success in the responsibility to be able to report out to the the upper echelons of their company remain.
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And that's why I think that leading indicator discussion is a good one. But I do think it really stem from Covid, the psychosocial risk. Understanding those employees, getting them back in the workplace, that there's a lot of stress with that. There still is a lot of stress regarding that.
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You know, it's a really interesting train of thought. Elizabeth, you mentioned earlier the word resiliency in this in this context, right. And and, Chris, one of the things that that I would be curious to hear from you is, you know, it seems like even before Covid, you know, the expectation was that we were the chess function was managing downside risk.
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Right. Let's just make sure we're not hurting anybody. Let's make sure that we're not polluting the environment and so forth. Now all of a sudden, we're having conversations about how the chess function cannot but be looking forward, being proactive as it relates to being business resilient to ensure that there's business continuity in place should things like a Covid happen again, you know, those types of things.
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Are you seeing from your perspective? I'd be really curious to hear. Are you seeing from your perspective that that slight shift in perspective and these functions today?
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Yeah, yeah. Versus more of a just a downside risk. They're planning forward. They're thinking they're doing they're doing strategic planning and so forth. They're doing all those types of things that a business critical function should do. But now they're really doing it with the perspective of business continuity. Are you seeing that from your
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Yes. It's definitely sort of from my perspective as well. It's more like Elizabeth has that higher level probably approach to things. So the sort of work that we're often doing is going into places and doing those audits on the ground and that sort of thing. So we're definitely seeing that there's been more recognition of the benefits for planning ahead.
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It's always a continuous struggle to get. I think Elizabeth alluded to this earlier on in the podcast, getting everyone to buy into that. And it's like we've already mentioned, it's also interconnected that to get everyone on the same page and working towards the same goal is difficult. But that first step is to get the people involved and the management and that sort of thing, setting the tone for what's expected.
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And as part of that, they need to be looking ahead. So they need to be planning what to be looking at and what are those key indicators to communicate to the rest of the business?
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you know, Chris and Elizabeth, what we're what we're seeing now is even early on in, in business decisions, let's say in due diligence, so forth, we're starting to see a significant focus now on on things that are more operational risk like from a, from a in a health and safety perspective and environmental perspective.
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It's no longer just it doesn't necessarily have to be material from the perspective of a dollar amount anymore. But what actually could interrupt the business that may or may not happen? What's the probability of the likelihood of those types of things happening, and what controls do they have in place. So we're starting to see in some of our, in some of our really open, say, more or some of our larger clients, I would say more, much more proactive and thoughtful, thoughtful process and early on in an asset.
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So I'm not sure that's where you're going with it, Elizabeth. But are you? I think are you seeing the same thing from your perspective? Elizabeth.
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APAC region, because one of the reasons why it was making me think about this, we were talking about psychosocial risk or occupational health programs, for example,
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and we just had a nice discussion with the APAC region to realize that in some cases, like they are starting to show up in like the Australian regulations for psychosocial.
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But when you talk about occupational health and mandatory, you know, monitoring of your employees, of their health and their interaction with their workforce, that isn't as strong in the APAC region for the most part. There are definitely some exceptions to that. So but I was curious, Chris, because I think you had told me that you had done some due diligence work
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my point is like, how soon are you seeing them pick up that risk element, not just your regulatory, you know, requirements, but we're starting to look at those things of what are those other the risks that we would normally be working on sort of after the fact, after clients in trouble. Are we. Starting to see that really being promoted at the front of these projects, the front end of the building and the due diligence and looking at the property, even
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Yeah, that's definitely the case. And that's what you see in these sorts of due diligence things. The the more knowledge that you can have across the various risks that might be there, the better placed you are to deal with whatever sort of transactions that you're moving into or whatever the purposes for your due diligence on those assets.
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So, you know, even from an environmental perspective, having the knowledge around your sites and having that sort of expertise that, you know, people like us can bring to an assessment is really valuable. And I think that that's definitely been recognized that, you know, obviously the better companies are recognizing that more. And sometimes there's other companies that you have to go in and bring them along for the journey.
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I know we've had experience where we did some bus depots doing assessments of those, and as part of the due diligence process, they thought, oh, there's
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Assumption.
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gave them some sort of advice, I guess, around, particularly around some underground infrastructure that they had in terms of fuel lines and that sort of thing.
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And we said, look, they might not be it might be considered a new facility and fantastic, but it's worth doing investigation against some information. And as a result of that, we identified a leak that played into, you know, extended remediation. That was part of that, you know, the negotiations for that transaction. So there's really important I think the better people are recognizing the importance and the value of that of doing that work, getting reliable information on it, and then making their decisions based on good information, as best information as they can get on what
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And where I think that really builds in what you ask is that, you know, when we looked at standard due diligence, maybe
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Corporates. Yeah.
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there is some there's some charge charged language there. But the idea that, you know, sustainability is really a test of resilience, right? If I can if I can prove my amount of carbon, if I can prove that I've got this sort of global aspects of looking at my company, I can look at all those programs and policies in the due diligence phase.
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It tells me a lot about the culture of that company. I think we're starting to see now more and more pressure, which I am delighted in about making sure health and safety is also in the due diligence, and maybe not at that very top level, but to actually dig in a little bit because of how much money could potentially be on the line during the equalizing that company into a standing portfolio.
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At 100%. Elizabeth, you think about some of the things that we've dealt with recently and even not so recently, you know, these these, these functions now are, are being asked about things that are quite frankly, not in their purview, weren't in their purview 2 or 3 years ago. And all of a sudden they are I'm thinking things like packaging and PFAS and packaging.
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I'm thinking about things like sustainable supply chains or, you know, what is what's the what. You know how you know, what is the resiliency of their supply chains. And from a from a raw product perspective and so forth. And what does that really mean from a business interruption in a business continuity perspective, these functions are getting challenged in a way that a from my perspective, from a practitioner perspective is fascinating.
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But it's also it does really open your mind to where the complexity of what these organizations are dealing with. So I think we could probably spend the full hour just on this, but why don't we? Why don't we move on here a little bit and let's talk about this concept of speed, about, you know, as we as it relates to the the need for these organizations to understand risk early and be able to address it early versus being in a reactive mode.
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So, you know, as we think about that, you know, we're starting to see these organizations have a much greater demand for early indicators like almost predictive modeling, I guess you could say around around risk. It's no longer they no longer have the luxury of a week to two weeks to to react to these types of things. They're actually
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VHS functions are expected.
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Well, why didn't you know about this and why weren't you managing this. It's no. Yeah. It's no longer allowed to be really good at responding and be really, really fast. The expectation is elevated for these functions in a way. And and I'm sure you both have seen this right in the way they behave and the way they act and how quickly they're asking for data and so forth.
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So, you know, when we think about ease and we think about let's just think about basic physical health and safety.
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right from your perspective, what what are you what are you seeing now as companies using as really good leading indicators that actually matter from a health and safety perspective?
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What do you do? You have any have you seen anything interesting from that perspective?
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I think, you know, first of all, there's been some leading indicators that I think people have promoted for years. They're starting to get more and more traction because and I think before I get into what those are, I think it's one of the reasons why we see so many advertisements for so many software packages. Right? Everyone is trying to be that thing that you can encapsulate this data in.
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And I think it is important that your data isn't not only site specific, but can be aggregated up to the business unit, to the corporation because they all need to see it a little bit differently. But but these indicators, things like what is there a percentage of facilities that are on time on their preventive maintenance program, you know, where are we on our closure corrective actions?
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What's the percentages of folks who have completed key risk training to manage that training things of that nature. And I've even seen it where clients are looking at like, how often am I getting a continuation or a continual improvement suggestion from the the the the facility community kiosk where people can put in ideas because it tells them a little bit about the culture.
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When we start to slip in preventative maintenance, obviously we have a bigger issue there because now we may end up in a CapEx situation. But all these little indicators are things that tell me how that system, that health of the system is in that moment. And you used to be that was like a nice thing to have. Many people have that now in a digital form and that digital form that allows you to sort of set deadlines.
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The deadline passes, it can then start to get the like the red light, green light, yellow light, sort of like a traffic light indicators up one level for people to take a look at. And again, it think it just drives people to be aware faster than waiting for something to happen and be like, oh, how did this happen?
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Let's go back and look at the data. It's more than just near misses, which used to be the standard thing.
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Yeah. You know, for for both of you, one of the things that I've observed over time is three, 4 or 5 years ago, there was this maybe even longer than that. Now there was a significant reliance upon these information management systems. They're still really, really good. And they still provide a very valuable piece. I but what I'm starting to see now is a level of sophistication of how they take that data.
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They evaluate that data, but it's not the sole truth. Right. There's a little bit of there's a little bit of, of sound judgment. There's a little bit of some of this trending analysis that we're seeing. And they're okay. They seem to be better at at being interpreting that data and what it really tells you. Are you are you seeing are you seeing that in practice, Chris, at all?
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Are you seeing or you seeing? Companies still rely upon these environmental management systems, information management systems, but also elevating their game as it relates to okay, what am I doing with this data? What am I actually what am I? How am I interpreting it and how am I taking that information and translating that into actionable items to accomplish?
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Are you seeing anything like that in practice?
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people being able to have those basics in place and all the reporting and getting that information. The longer they've been able to do that, you start to build up a bit of experience in that area and you can start to use, like you say, that sort of judgment and and anticipating where things are going and how things might change and what those risks may be.
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So you can start to read the data a bit more. So rather than just relying on once something gets recorded, let's react to it. You can start to look at things and predict where
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It's almost you know, it is interesting like a client that I was working with recently, we were talking about what's the most important piece of data out of the environmental management system. And we decided it was the management of change and the documents that came out of that, because it told us that people were looking at those critical risks early.
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It was a way for us to track, like, how many times are we changing the process? Because I think that's the other thing, is that now and then, be it due to I'm trying to get a green chemistry or I'm trying to get a an engineering control in the amount of change those one decision makes in the whole, that management change can really elevate that in perception to those decision makers to understand that it sounds really easy to buy new part B, but you know, that new piece of equipment I need new SOPs, I need new training.
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Like the investment is much bigger than just the price tag, because the investment is about managing the risk of bringing that into the facility and changing operations. And so I thought that was sort of interesting hearing that from a client, I'd be like, yeah, I don't care about any of it, but the management of change and they're like, oh, okay, not the legal register.
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Right. But it's interesting. Right? Elizabeth. When you think about and Chris, when you think about management of change, when you think about management systems, everybody, everybody does really well. And up until that point where the management of change piece and then how do you actually implement that? How do you actually ingratiate that in an organization that says, okay, something's changed within my process.
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Something has changed within my product, either a new ingredient, a new some, whatever. The change was. Right? How does that trigger. Oh, I actually need to do some change management here. Right? Are you seeing any best practices as it relates to that? Either one of you.
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Yeah, well I mean best practice I guess overall is, is if you're going to implement something new, it's setting the tone, it's bringing in everyone and getting everyone involved on that change. So if you're just going to try and enforce something, it's probably not going to stick as well as you might hope. And it's getting that continuity between, you know, the whole process.
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That would be my comment
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So it really is creating that culture of just just if it just is it is just instilling that when something changes, just stop, pause, think and go through that process is, you know.
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Okay.
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to also like if you're going to make a change it's a physical aspect of this building change.
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There needs to be a pause because they had Ada compliance issues, they would have to potentially change workflows, change the different maintenance, same thing, and they actually set a price for every piece of equipment. I wish I remember the number, but they figured out like for every new piece of equipment because they have to write an SNP, we have to train everyone.
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We have to come back to see it. The train stuck. That's your visual safety cuz we have to do all the floor marking. They had a price to that. So they also, you know that project manager going to be like yep I need this new was bang piece of equipment. That's great. It costs x and now you need to add x amount on top of that to deal with all the risk that it presents and the rework to the facility.
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I mean, some of this is functional rework, which I thought was a really smart idea, but again, it brought everyone in and wasn't just like, can we do it? Can we not? It's like, we can do it. Here's the investment you need to be prepared for.
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So so what I'm hearing you say is that if the person, let's say there's a project manager or someone like that that's making a change, it's not only up to them necessarily to do the risk or the change management piece of this, but there's third party or other outside stakeholder gates, right? That that if you're going to either put in a new chemistry procurement says hold on.
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Nope. This isn't part of my approved list. I'm going to pause this. Right. Or hold on. This is not part of my engineering schema for this particular facility. You know, we're going to pause this, right. So it was probably a two phased approach right. One is the the actual implementer. And then you got stakeholder gates that are that that provide that safety net maybe.
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Is that is that a good way of describing how they did that. Yeah. Yeah. Good.
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you know, like, oh, it's only going to cost us $20,000. Well, $20,000 in a physical asset, it's going to cost us maybe another $20,000 just to get all the, you know, the risk, all these parts and pieces of the program redone.
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So they flow. Because if you think about a management system, you think about a written document system. It's about showing a regulator that
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you've looked at the risk and you have a control, and you're keeping those controls top of mind for your personnel. That isn't just simply wordplay, that it's actually something you document. You know, just like a legal register is just a piece of paper.
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But the key thing is, is to show a regulator. I've looked at all these requirements for my operations, and I have an answer for you. For each of those, it should be in a document, because if it's not documented, it never happened. But that is that whole process of like really understanding how many people get touched by one change.
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And again, I think I think people have gotten savvier to that. I do think management systems help people get to this point. And don't forget, in some countries, those management systems are now becoming a regulatory obligation. So I mean, I think that's an interesting process to that many. And that's happening in Europe right now that we're starting to see that ISO systems are in mandatory or mandatory, depending on the risk of your of your facility.
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So when we think about what these organizations are dealing with, the complexities, they've got a small function. As we've discussed already today, they've got a global footprint of varying degrees of risk, varying degrees of regulatory complexity based on where these facilities are located. Right. Varying degrees of of skills and capabilities. You can only imagine, right, of of what some of these functions are dealing with and trying to level load this risk in some manner, shape or form.
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So we know that these organizations don't manage risks alone. So, Chris, from your perspective, right, and your experience, let's say particularly working with and doing these, these, these large indigent client type efforts, what does effective collaboration look like on the ground from your perspective?
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And that when you've got that communication going back and forth, you end up with good information and the ability to make good assessments of the risks. We've done several assessments with imaging partners, like entire typically what makes those projects work well has been collaborating between the integer and partner.
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And that that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. Within the context of their own risk profile and the risk tolerance and so forth. Right. Yeah. Elizabeth, any thoughts on. Yeah. Yeah, maybe thoughts on that. It looks good.
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Chris, I think you alluded to. I think sometimes what is great, especially about having the alliance behind us, is that when I have a problem, I have a unique situation I think is a unique situation with a client. I can reach out to the hey, have you ever experiences like how did you manage this risk, that idea of, you know, it's not disclosing one client, you know, secret sauce, but it's more about like, here's here's how you might want to approach that.
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And having that sounding board of understanding not only how to handle a unique situation, but as Chris alluded to, is that there is a difference in how you do business across the country, cross the globe. And so when you identify a risk and you want to go charging through to manage it, it isn't always the same way in all countries based on the culture and the spirit of that, of that of that particular area.
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So I think that's the idea that local resource to come and like, okay, we've got to manage this, here's what our process is and be like, let's take a step back for a moment and help us get that pace and get that that approach right. So we're successful for the client because in the end of the day, you know, to to protect the environment, to protect those employees is what we're trying to do is see if that risk and their control.
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But it does take a village now
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Does it does you know, when you think about the that that single point of contact issue or the that so many of our clients are looking for, right. That it's so critical? I know Elizabeth you play this this role a lot where you sit and listen, you digest and you, you, you you interpret what a client's risk tolerance is, what they are comfortable with.
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What what's really driving them. Is it compliance? Is is it is it policy? Is it is it brand. Is it brand image. Is it supply chain risk management and so forth. Right. And then being able to take that coalesce, that bring it into some semblance of a package that we deliver to our partners, are associated partners around the world.
00:30:13:23 - 00:30:37:10
So when they do their stuff on the ground locally, they now have the context by which this organization is thinking. And and I think my experience that has always been that's when we are most successful, when our associates that we're working with around the world really have that opportunity to to tell me a little bit more, I want to understand what is their business driver, why are they doing this?
00:30:37:11 - 00:31:00:00
Right? We're we're much better providers. We're much better consultants when we can actually provide advice in the context of a business. So I know that you do that really well. Elizabeth and Chris, I'm assuming that's what you is that what you typically see from the Alliance as you, as you've engaged multiple project managers from around the world?
00:31:00:02 - 00:31:26:19
that's the sort of thing that we get where you can get that consistency really is what it is. It's it's the working with that client to have that established consistency and then being able to bring in localized expertise as and where they're needed, but still maintaining a consistent approach that then the client is able to assess conditions across the board.
00:31:26:20 - 00:31:34:01
So they're not looking at different reports from different regions that may not be able to compare apples to apples, so to
00:31:34:03 - 00:31:53:05
All right. I would be remiss I'm sorry, Elizabeth, I want to be sensitive to time and understand that I know that there's so much more we could talk about this. In fact, this has been great. But I want to I just want to t up something just so I've got the two of you on the call. I'm going to ask some questions that real quick for each one for, for, for.
00:31:53:06 - 00:32:19:22
I'll go with Elizabeth first. Elizabeth. One emerging risk that HS leaders need to be should watch out for right now. If you had to think if you had to throw out one.
00:32:19:24 - 00:32:26:01
Okay, Chris.
00:32:26:03 - 00:32:44:20
Psychosocial for you as well. Right. So psychosocial. Yeah okay.
00:32:44:22 - 00:32:50:10
Yeah yeah.
00:32:50:12 - 00:33:08:11
Okay. Nice. Well thank you to Elizabeth and Chris for your invaluable insights today on season three of Rethinking Global and Local Delivery. This has been a fascinating discussion, and I wish we could have had more time.
00:33:08:17 - 00:33:21:12
As we celebrate 25 years of the Internet Alliance. The series is a reflection of what makes our network unique global collaboration, local expertise, and a shared commitment to accelerating a resilient planet for all.
00:33:21:14 - 00:33:42:09
Catch us next week for an upcoming bonus episode, where we will be taking the conversation further by exploring risk from a slightly different perspective, focusing on the cultural factors that often sit beneath the surface. We'll be joined by Elizabeth to unpack how these invisible risks can be shaped, organizational outcomes, and what leaders can do to better identify and manage them.
00:33:42:11 - 00:34:11:22
And if you found today's conversations valuable, I hope you did. Be sure to follow the series and share it with colleagues across your organization and network. Find us on our website and on LinkedIn. Follow us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. And until next time. Thank you for listening. For being part of the global community. Working to turn knowledge into action.
00:34:11:24 - 00:34:12:08
Sure.
