The Role of U.S. Corporate Boards in Enterprise Risk Management

Increasing numbers of directors acknowledge that overseeing risk is part of their role, and that evolving legal developments make a robust enterprise risk management oversight process more important than ever. But although oversight processes have improved, directors may be operating under a false sense of security about risk. Almost 90 percent of directors say they fully understand the risks of their current strategy, but that number drops when they are asked more specific questions about their risk tolerance levels, risk rankings, and risk/return trade-offs. Directors need to improve their ERM oversight processes rather than burdening their overworked audit committees.