I was lucky enough to attend day one of the 8th annual Business Continuity and Corporate Security conference here in New York City. The two-day event brought together risk professionals and corporate executives from around the U.S. to engage in a series of informational seminars.

Alexander Tabb, of the TABB Group, opened the conference with his presentation on resiliency in the economic recovery and how companies can cope by managing with less.

In what was the most engaging presentation of day one, Tabb repeatedly stressed how important it is for companies to establish a specific definition or risk. Various employees throughout an organization may have their own definition of risk, but for risk management to be successful, each and every organization must define their own, specific definition of risk in relation to their operation.

Mr. Tabb then expressed his views on the role of a chief risk officer. “The CRO role is way too much for one person to handle,” Tabb said, explaining his opinion that there should be a risk committee within a company that is composed of, among others, operational, financial and technological risk managers.

He felt the CRO solution never achieved its goals and companies are now moving away from the CRO role – at least most of them. “Effective CROs were the exception to the rule and it is highly dependent upon the personality of that chief risk officer.”

The resounding sentiment, not only from Tabb, but from every other conference speaker that day was the notion that risk is going to be a topic for the next five years…at least.

And we will be here to cover it.