Foreword
Today’s risk environment is characterised by dynamic and evolving threats and opportunities. Recent and current events highlight just how quickly things can change and how the factors affecting organisations’ ability to operate, trade and grow never remain static.
Against that backdrop, organisations are increasingly aware of the need to build resilience, to be ready to anticipate and be prepared to tackle uncertain and evolving threats using foresight capabilities. Foresight has been highlighted by both the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations’ Summit of the Future as a discipline that will be vital for organisations to complement traditional risk management to navigate the challenges ahead.
As well as ‘known knowns’, those current and near-term threats that Risk Managers deal with on a daily basis, and ‘known unknowns’, those strategic risks voluntarily accepted by companies to generate returns, organisations are facing a series of ‘unknown unknowns.
Those ‘unknown unknowns’ are uncontrollable, sudden and unexpected shocks. They are the surprises that might occur in ten years’ time that may, as yet, be overlooked, unrecognised or insufficiently analysed.
All too often, the short-termism and bias in the thinking of Risk Managers, the organisations they work for and the governments and regulators whose activities affect their business operations mean that emerging risk trends may be overlooked. This, in turn, hampers long-term risk management strategies and means that the approach to emerging risk trends is too often reactive rather than proactive.
FERMA wants to equip Risk Managers and their companies to prepare for those risks often referred to as ‘Black Swan’ events; events that are unforeseen or unexpected but which have dramatic, potentially far-reaching effect, or ‘Grey Rhinos’; events that are high impact and highly probable, but which are often ignored or overlooked until it is too late We also want to highlight them to our insurance industry partners and to the European authorities and beyond to foster a culture of collective long-term thinking and preparedness.
Our goal is to establish Risk Managers as leaders in risk foresight and as enablers of opportunity, to contribute to the elevation of the standing of our profession and to ensure its voice is heard in turbulent times.
Our goal is to establish Risk Managers as leaders in risk foresight and as enablers of opportunity, to contribute to the elevation of the standing of our profession and to ensure its voice is heard in turbulent times.
With that aim in mind, last year we established a Foresight Committee, made up of recognised European experts with international experience from outside of our immediate scope of stakeholders.
The Foresight Committee was set up to give meaningful insights on emerging topics for FERMA and our members. This paper, the fruit of the exchange of views by the Foresight Committee, provides thoughts and actionable recommendations that will guide FERMA’s activities in 2025 and serve as a foundation for future discussions with key stakeholders and in our advocacy work.
The report is intended to be a reflection tool for Risk Managers and to help them to become more future-focused. We hope it will encourage and enable Risk Managers to think about the mid-to-long term threats to their companies, to the societies in which they live and work and to the European economy. This paper will initiate internal discussions in our members’ organisations as well as provide practical guidance that will equip Risk Managers with tools to assess these risks in a dynamic fashion and adopt proactive strategies to managing them.
For the first iteration of this report, we identified four global, interconnected and potentially systemic trends of crucial relevance to European Risk Managers and their organisations in the next ten years. Those trends are, in no order of importance: geopolitical shifts, technological acceleration; climate change; and human capital.
In this paper you will read thoughts on those topics from a variety of international experts with legitimacy and expertise in fields outside of the risk and insurance world. The Foresight Committee does not necessarily provide a consensus view, but its work is intended to stimulate further debate and give Risk Managers ideas to consider on these emerging and evolving risk areas.
This report, New EXposure Trends – or NEXT, is intended to be food for thought and to inspire continued discussion and new ways of thinking about these emerging risk areas and how to overcome the short-termism and bias inherent in the decision-making of many organisations today.
With thanks to the members of the first Foresight Committee who have contributed to this report: Typhaine Beaupérin, CEO of FERMA; Professor Bruno Colmant; Philippe Cotelle, FERMA Board member and chairperson of the Committee; Paulino Fajardo, Head of Disputes for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP; Charlotte Hedemark, President of FERMA, Risk Management Expert, Field Risk Management, SAP; Daria Krivonos, CEO, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies; Sean Lyons, Corporate Defense Authority, Writer, and Speaker, Consultant; and Sebastian Wieczorek, CEO, Mantix.
The Foresight Committee is not a closed club, it is a living entity to which we hope to attract experts from other fields to discuss and examine future trends. This report is, therefore, the first of many. We aim to enrich the debate and provide thought-provoking insights for our Risk Management community, our insurance and broking partners and the European authorities with whom we communicate on these emerging trends.
Philippe Cotelle
FERMA Board Member and Chairperson of the Foresight Committee
Charlotte Hedemark
President of FERMA
