Risk managers gain new prominence in post-Lehman boardrooms

The risk management failures of banks now seem glaringly obvious. The assumption that mathematical models reflected reality, the substitution of human intuition for statistics, the belief that risk can be encapsulated in simple number form: all proved errors the sell-side is now trying to correct.

And then there was the role of risk managers themselves, who were often seen by the top brass as a hindrance to business, a middle-office cost centre needlessly policing the people bringing in the cash