Graduate School for Professionals

Executive Master in Risk Management Programme

Course Synopsis

Governments are encouraging enterprises and public sector agencies to improve their operations so that they can better cope with risks and uncertainties. A global world where capital, goods and people move across the globe easily will continue to bring both benefits and increased risks. The banks have to manage risks with greater diligence than ever before. Examples of ineffective risk management and inadequate supervision in the recent global financial crisis have shown serious shortcoming that must be addressed.

The Executive Master in Risk Management (EMRM) provides workshop or seminar participants with the best practice in risk management. It provides a new learning experience in executive education. It brings forth new concepts and new tools in risk management. Participants will be equipped with the appropriate level of analytical and computational and practical skills with respect to the variety of roles and responsibilities overseeing the risk management function. Opportunities will be given to develop skills and capability through application of knowledge to activities in both real-world and simulated environments.

Objectives

• Understand the concepts and contexts of risk and uncertainty, such as acceptability of risks and the identification of cost-effective strategies in the risk environment to provide safe, reliable operations and business continuity.
• Develop skills and methods for identifying risk signals and communicate these to stakeholders, including the risk scorecard, risk simulations, and handling governance and compliance issues
• Critically evaluate and utilise new and established risk management tools for environmental risk assessment, financial and industrial risk assessment, risk policy assessment, risk treatment, and measuring the effectiveness of risk policy implementation
• Gain insights into different sources of information used by individuals and stakeholders and the factors that influence their perceptions of risk identification, risk avoidance or reduction, risk mitigation and risk transfer

Outline of Seminars

The syllabus will be covered in 10 seminars over 20 weekends.

•    Weekend 1-2         : Fundamentals of Risk Management
•    Weekend 3-4         : Risk Management Frameworks, Policies and Systems
•    Weekend 5-6         : Best Practices for Effective Risk-Based Internal Audit
•    Weekend 7-8         : Managing and Measuring Operational Risks
•    Weekend 9-10         : Strengthening Corporate Governance & Compliance
•    Weekend 11-12         : Human Capital Risk Management
•    Weekend 13-14         : Risk Mapping
•    Weekend 15-16         : Quantitative techniques in risk management
•    Weekend 17-18         : Advanced Cast Studies
•    Weekend 19 -20         : Designing and Writing a Risk Management Project Proposal

Target Participants

The programme is designed for people seeking to develop a career including a risk management function. It provides the requisite knowledge, organizational and analytical skills needed to effectively perform risk management.

Certification

A certificate is given after each workshop or seminar by a local training partner of the American University of Asia Pacific. Upon satisfactory completion of 10 seminars, a participant may apply for credit transfer to obtain a Masters in Risk Management of the American University of Asia Pacific. The participant may choose to attend the award granting ceremony in New York, Hong Kong, Melbourne or Singapore.

Teaching Methodology

• Workshops and seminars
• Case studies
• Group discussion
• Information sharing

The workshops are conducted in English Language

Course Leader Profile

Professor Douglas Boehr, Professor of Accounting, was a senior auditor and senior consultant at KPMG, Bearings Point and Norwest Bank and later became the Controller at IE Du Pont and Geneva Global Inc.. He has implemented several large scale financial systems and HR systems using the Oracle and Peoplesoft platforms. He is qualified as a Certified Public Accountant with a BA in Business Administration from Wittenburg University, and now provides his expertise in operations management, corporate governance, risk management, compliance and HR process. He conducts courses relating to Sarbannes Oxley 2002 compliance, corporate governance and forensic accounting.

Benefit

• Gain practical insights and better understanding in Risk Management
• Participants attain relevant working techniques needed for Risk Management work
• Participants are informed of the latest macroeconomic information in the region
• Participants are trained by experienced lecturers-trainers who have worked in international development projects
• Guest lecturers and sessions to enable students to network within the Risk Management community and enhance their future career opportunities

Cost of Investment

USD$700 per participant for each seminar

All 10 seminars must be attended within 24 months. Upon full attendance of the seminars the participant is entitled to apply for credit transfer to obtain the Executive Masters of Risk Management of the American University of Asia Pacific.

Seminar Synopsis

RMG 6000 Fundamentals in Risk Management

Students develop a working knowledge of the language of quantitative analysis, of free-market economics and of corporate finance as it relates to the management of risk. At the end of the course students are able to integrate and apply fundamental concepts from statistics, economics and finance to answer basic business-related questions on managing and financing risk.

The seminar introduces an understanding of risk and uncertainties in organizations. Seminar participants are provided with clarifications of various risk types such as market, credit, liquidity, legal and operational risk, and ways to managed them are expounded.

RMG 8001 Risk management framework

This course presents financial objectives of corporate risk management process, empirical evidence of how and why firms manage risk, institutional environment and regulations of risk management. Students are expected to be able to jointly manage pure and financial risk.

An effective risk management framework helps organizations assess and enhance their internal control systems. That framework can be incorporated into policy, rule, and regulation, and used to better control of business activities in moving toward achievement of an organization's objectives.

RMG 8002 Best Practices for Effective Risk-Based Internal Audit

Students are anticipated to understand and use risk assessment, risk management methods and technique to set priorities in both design and execution of audit activities so that they will enhance audit productivity and achieve quality audit results. A comprehensive roadmap on risk-based internal audit techniques will be explored. In addition, students will also learn how to employ risk-based methodologies in planning and conducting audits to provide assurance on the adequacy of integrated risk management practices, management control frameworks and information used for decision-making and reporting on the achievement of overall business objectives.

The seminar is designed to help participant better understand the use of risk assessment, risk management methods and technique to set priorities in both design and execution of audit activities. The development and use of Risk-Based Internal Audit (RBIA) has proven to be an essential tool a that can assist in enhancing productivity and achieve quality audit results

RMG 8015 Managing and estimating operational risks

A thorough introduction to operational risk and a good understanding of how the various types of operational risk can be measured and managed are to be covered. This course will take a close look at the various types of risks that are categorized as operational risks, including people risk, technology risk, legal risk, model risk, and accounting and tax risks as well as quantitative and statistical techniques which are applied to measure these risks. The course will also present and discuss possible ways of managing operational risk, including "Business Process Reengineering", using insurance, incentives, and sophisticated derivatives and structured products with "embedded" insurance features.

An operational risk is a risk arising from an organization's business functions and from the practical implementation of the management's strategy. It can be defined as the risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people, systems and management or from external events. This seminar shall assist participants to draw up templates to estimate risks

RMG 8015 Strengthening Corporate Governance & Compliance

The course will cover corporate governance and compliance, the risks and consequences of non-compliance and weak governance systems, the respective role and responsibilities of the Board of Directors, the implications of regulatory requirement such as Sarbanes Oxley for corporate accountability and ethical behaviour. Students will learn how to develop an effective corporate compliance program tailored to an organization's needs for both compliance and proactive risk management.

Recent corporate collapses have highlighted the weaknesses of existing internal controls systems and the need for good corporate governance triggering strong industry and regulatory and industry initiatives to raise the standard the organisation need to reach in dealing with risk issues. Creating a culture that integrate, business ethic, proper governance and effective compliance is an important part of the overall risk management strategy.

RMG 8066 Human Capital Risk Management

Human capital poses both the greatest risks and the greatest rewards for organizations. Especially during uncertain times, an organization must develop the knowledge, capabilities, and motivation of its people to align them with the organizational objectives of effective governance and risk management. This course discusses talent management in an organization's risk and compliance efforts, employees' responsibilities in addressing risk in the organization, resources that should be provided to employees to help them identify fraud and other behaviours that could endanger their organizations, the key tenets of Risk Intelligence that should be incorporated into the organizational structure and employee training strategy of an organization, and the risk factors associated with low employee morale.

The mismanagement of your organization's greatest asset: the employees, is the root of most evils for many companies. Incompetent, ineffective, de-motivated, etc. employees/managers lead to destructive behaviour in teams generating tremendous waste of resources at very high cost for organizations. At the end of the day, whatever is your position and function in an organization, you will need to have the right people in your team organized within an appropriate structure and systems to carry out and implement your strategy, run the operational processes effectively to deliver the value necessary to grow your organization.

RMG 8067 Risk Mapping

This course will apply the tools like Risk Assessment Survey and the Risk Map are tools used to identify and measure the significance and likelihood of business risks that occur within a function or specific process and plot the significance and likelihood of the business risk occurring. Through visualizing risks in relation to each other and gauging their extent, students will learn how to plan what type of controls should be implemented to mitigate the risks.

Modern organisations are now confronted with increased volatility and complexity in today's global business environment. The interactions of many forces (social, cultural, political, financial, environmental and legal) form a risk landscape for an organisation. All decisions involve a degree of uncertainty and there are tremendous risks inherent in most key issues facing leaders/managers today at they strive to lead their organisation toward sustainable growth and profitability. This workshop will introduce you to risk mapping, highlights the benefits, summarizes one method of developing risk maps, and describes several applications, for risk mapping in an organisation.

RMG 8068 Quantitative techniques in risk management

This course provides students a comprehensive treatment of the theoretical concepts and modelling techniques of quantitative risk management and equips students of quantitative finance--with practical tools to solve real-world problems. The course covers methods for market, credit, and operational risk modelling, places standard industry approaches on a more formal footing, and describes recent developments that go beyond, and address main deficiencies of, current practice. Main concepts discussed include loss distributions, risk measures, and risk aggregation and allocation principles.

Financial risk management is becoming increasingly important as the financial markets become more dynamic and derivatives products more complex. This seminar gives a thorough and up-to-date view of all the quantitative techniques employed in risk management. The course will cover the key elements of market, credit, operational, liquidity and counterparty risk.

RMG 9000 Advanced Case Studies

A series of comprehensive cases will be explored through the course. Students will gain practical experience and detailed knowledge in the risk management areas. While analyzing these cases, students are required to investigate, form potential solutions, and produce detailed research proposals stressing an innovation to risk-related managerial challenges.

The workshop offers insights to risk management case studies to participants. It allows participants to know the types of risks that exist in specific organizations and how the organization seeks to manage those risks.

RMG 9002 Designing and Writing a Risk Management Project Proposal

Students will need to apply their knowledge and skills gained through the program to compete a project proposal of practical use to a business entity. The project, however, requires students to apply critical thinking skills and a systematic problem-solving approach within professional contexts.

This seminar grooms participants to develop a risk management initiative at a process level or enterprise level. Many executives feel that by a suggestion of a risk management initiative may be viewed as a complaint or whistle blowing. The seminar will help participants to write the proposal professionally.