Building a risk culture

Profile

Heavy losses, shareholder unrest, an ongoing row with the European Union (EU) and the impending loss of state support – not the most promising backdrop against which to start a new job, but that didn’t discourage Matthijs van den Adel from becoming WestLB’s first chief risk officer last January.

“WestLB’s problems were caused by a lack of risk management,” he says. “My challenge was to introduce risk management to the bank on an integrated risk and return basis.”

Having just set up a firm-wide