Philadelphia (January 14, 2004)—Charles R. Taylor, director of operational risk at RMA—The Risk Management Association, will address Risk Waters Group’s 6th annual operational risk conference March 30-31, 2004, in New York City. RMA Chair Suzanne Labarge, who is vice chairman of RBC Financial Group, also will address the conference as a keynote speaker.
OpRisk USA 2004 examines methods and tools for managing and quantifying operational risk and looks at the considerable challenge of implementing and embedding the operational risk function. Both the theory and practical aspects of realizing a sound and cost-effective operational risk management function will be discussed.
Taylor joined RMA one year ago as director of operational risk, a new position that RMA created to serve the needs of its members as they seek to better measure and manage those risks. During his first year, Taylor brought the Operational Risk Management Discussion Group into RMA, launched the Working Group on Operational Risk Regulation to provide industry comment on operational risk in Basel, launched the KRI (key risk indicator) Framework Study and represented RMA in several forums including the National Academy of Sciences’ January 2004 workshop on Enterprise-Wide Risk Management.
Labarge, who is also chief risk officer for RBC Financial Group, said that operational risk management is a discipline with a promising future and noted that Taylor’s role at RMA is crucial in helping the industry better understand and manage its operational risks. "It's safe to predict that organizations, driven either by regulations or their own sad experiences with risk (or both), will focus increasingly on developing their own internal frameworks for managing operational risk,” she said. “The discipline, the tools, and the methodology will continue to evolve.”
Taylor’s broad background in international finance, economics, and corporate strategic planning includes several important previous posts. Before joining RMA, Taylor was managing director-strategy development at Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) from 2000-2002. Prior to DTCC, Taylor was associate partner and head of the global risk management practice at Andersen Consulting/Accenture, where he also served as consultant to the securities and banking industries.
Between 1990 and 1996, Taylor served as executive director of The Group of Thirty, the Washington-based think tank internationally recognized for its sponsorship and advancement of collaborative works in support of global standards and protocols for capital flows, risk management, and related issues. Earlier in his career, Taylor was a project economist, country economist, and senior economist for various multilateral associations, as well as a partner in Deloitte, Haskins & Sells Consultancy Division in London.
Taylor received his B.A. in mathematics from Kings College, Cambridge University, his M.Phil in economics from St. Antony's College, Oxford University, and his MBA from Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania.
Taylor serves on the Advisory Board for the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation in London.
RMA is a member-driven professional association whose sole purpose is to advance the use of sound risk principles in the financial services industry. Founded in 1914, RMA promotes an enterprise-wide approach to risk management that focuses on credit risk, market risk, and operational risk. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, RMA has about 3,000 institutional members that include banks of all sizes as well as nonbank institutions. They are represented in the Association by 16,000 commercial loan, credit, and risk management professionals in the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, and numerous foreign cities, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne, and London.
Visit RMA on the Web at www.rmahq.org.