CBA’s Alden Toevs on enterprise risk management

A balancing act

Alden Toevs, Commonwealth Bank of Australia

The global financial crisis exposed, with chilling clarity, the dangers of thinking in silos, particularly where risk management is concerned. Across the globe, a focus on individual risk exposures – without taking into consideration the broader picture – led to the build-up of complex, interrelated exposures that ultimately brought the financial system to the brink of collapse. In other words, it was a failure to consider risks on an enterprise-wide basis that was at the root of many of the