UMD just launched a Risk Consortium to help local leaders

In College Park, a group of local experts just formally launched a tool for government, NGO and industry customers.

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is building a Smith Enterprise Risk Consortium, set to launch this summer. With a goal of providing industry insights, applied research, trainings, analytics and more, the consortium is designed to share expertise with the local entities in need.

UMD’s Clifford Rossi, a professor of the practice and executive-in-residence for the Smith School, has been tapped as director of the consortium. Mary Bittle Koenick, the associate director of executive education at Smith, will be the program director. The consortium will also collaborate with executive risk fellows Robert Brammer and William Longbrake.

Rossi said that the faculty at Smith had developed a large body of work and outreach in the area, as well as leadership and educational programs, which inspired leadership to make it a key strategic initiative. In this way, it was a recognition of work already occurring.

“We’re working on the new chapter of what we’ve been doing all along, which has been more ad hoc projects and whatnot in risk management,” Rossi told Technical.ly. “We’ve coalesced around a large body of work in the area and outreach.”

As a consortium, he said, UMD experts are providing risk management, expertise and education. With the government, industry and NGO partners, the consortium will focus on financial services, pharmaceutical risk and climate risk. It will also create an advisory committee of about 15 senior industry leaders, and leaders are at work building both free and subscription-based tools that will be available on the consortium website. This will take the form of business intelligence tools, like a home mortgage loan tablet-based tool currently under construction, as well as risk webinars.

Eventually, he added, the consortium will also host custom training events on risk management as well.

“We think we’re planting the flag in risk management in a way that we haven’t seen from any other academic institutions,” Rossi said.

UMD students will also have a chance to participate in and work with these organizations. The leadership council will be at work establishing priorities for corporate boards and executives, as well as the tools being created. On the way: board boot camps and the first Risk Summit, on the calendar for February 2024.

“We think that we can be a trusted, objective voice for industry, government and NGOs rather than always having to rely on consultants, reviews or having to reach out to for-profit entities that are in the business of providing training,” Rossi said. “We think that will provide that value-added service and continue to promote our Smith brand as being leaders in risk management, thought leadership and things like that.”