Chapter spotlight: PRMIA Ireland

Ireland is the country of a hundred thousand welcomes (Céad Míle Fáilte), and in current times this is of course done virtually. Communities throughout Ireland are displaying and sharing online the very best of Irish culture, tradition, business, sport, fighting spirit, and the uniquely Irish sense of fun.

Ireland is also a global centre for financial services. Companies located in Ireland provide financial services to every major economy in the world. International banks, fintech, investment and fund managers, insurers, aircraft leasing operators and an array of other financial services firms employ over 42,000 people. This role was further enhanced by Brexit where key international companies moved their European Headquarters to Dublin/Ireland.

Against this backdrop, the PRMIA Ireland Steering Committee is planning some noteworthy events in the near future.

The Irish Chapter has recently been reorganised, with the regional directorship role split between Monika Smatralova and Alan Bluett. The focus of the co-regional directors has been to continue maintaining a strong steering committee with a clear focus on building awareness of the PRMIA brand in Ireland among risk management professionals and beyond. The steering committee is comprised of individuals from a broad range of backgrounds within the risk management sector across a financial services industry. This diversity brings new ideas and challenges to existing norms to ensure that PRMIA Ireland is innovative, ambitious, and delivers quality events to our members and facilitates the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and opinions on risk management.

PRMIA continues to serve during a recent pandemic

PRMIA Ireland initiated a series of topical events that ran throughout 2020. These sessions featured presentations from risk management professionals who shared their vision of risk management within the Irish financial services and banking sectors, including the growing presence of Fintech companies that have opted to establish in Ireland.

Events organised by the Irish chapter in 2020

• The Brexit clock is still ticking (Speakers included: Jim Power, Jim Power Economics Limited and Richard Pike, CEO of

Governor Software)

• Beanbags are Good, Trust is Better - My Journey into Fintech (Speaker included: Peter Rossiter, Chief Risk Officer of Starling International)

• Revolution & Evolution – the Fintech Experience Unplugged (Speakers included: Peter Cripwell, Chief Executive Officer of Risk System and Mark Byrne,

Associate Director of EquiLend)

• The Evolution of the CRO (In collaboration with Broadgate Search, the panel included: Cameron Marr, Director and

Chair at AIB Merchant Services; David Suetens, a Founder of Bridgebuilding and Ken

Radigan, CEO of PRMIA)

The majority of events were virtual, which has given the Irish chapter the opportunity to reach audiences beyond our borders and that was witnessed through the international attendance of our Chapter events.

risk agenda

Consistent with PRMIA’s mission to promote, develop and share professional risk management practices, the PRMIA Ireland chapter has an ambitious programme. In common with other chapters around the world, we listen to our members and their concerns in relation to prudential and conduct risk topics, climate change and the associated green financing, operational resilience (which was highlighted as the result of a current Covid-19 experience), digitalisation and cyber risk as well as the business risk model transformation due to a prolonged low interest rate environment and Brexit. We are committed to bring together risk professionals and serve our risk community locally and globally to address the above-mentioned concern and more.

PRMIA is open to collaboration

PRMIA Ireland has continued to build a good professional relationship with universities and other professional/ academic bodies across Ireland.

Notable is the relationship with the Society of Actuaries Ireland where the Co-Regional director Monika Smatralova is frequently invited to speak at their professional summits/events and conventions to share the practitioner’s experience and new trends in a risk management arena.

PRMIA Risk Management Challenge

PRMIA Ireland is also involved in the search for new talent via The Risk Management Challenge which is a case competition run by the PRMIA Institute looking to empower undergraduate and graduate students by taking them beyond the classroom and giving them exposure to real-world business situations. The Challenge offers students the opportunity to apply the concepts they have learned and showcase their knowledge, critical thinking skills, leadership, and presentation abilities.

We are very proud of Justin McCarthy, Chairman of The Board of Directors at the PRMIA Institute who is driving this important work, creating a platform for developing and enhancing risk management expertise.

The Irish chapter has been a long-standing supporter of the PRMIA Risk Management Challenge. Successful Irish teams supported by a local steering committee participated in the PRMIA regional finals where graduate and undergraduate students from all over Europe competed to solve business cases with a risk management focus. We would like to congratulate the Irish teams who participated in this challenging competition over the last couple years.

PRMIA Ireland is committed to increasing the number of participating universities and teams in future PRMIA Risk Management Challenge competitions.

Regional Directors

PRMIA thanks its locally based volunteers for providing content leadership, industry promotion and organizational support.

• Dr Monika Smatralova, Director BIA, Barclays Europe • Alan Bluett, Partner, The Panel

Regional Directors

• Justin McCarthy, Chairman of The Board of Directors at the PRMIA Institute • Elmarie van Breda, Director at FinRisk

• Conor Griffin, Director, Risk Advisory Services, Ernst & Young

PRMIA Ireland is eager to explore new insights and contributions; any member based in Ireland who is interested in getting involved should reach out to ireland@prmia.org for a no-commitment, informal discussion.