Risk Management Advice from an industry expert
This episode we have Boris Agranovich, who has been a risk manager for decades, and speaks SIX languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Hebrew, Dutch, English, and Spanish). How amazing is that? He started the Global Risk Community, the largest online community for risk managers, and it's doing very well. We talk about the differences between what we do (as IT risk managers) and what he does, where he's managing risk for the entire organization. Fascinating guy with a unique perspective.
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W. Curtis Preston:Um, so we're just gonna move forward with our guests today.
W. Curtis Preston:Who, you know, I started out, I was on his podcast, I'm happy to bring him on ours.
W. Curtis Preston:Uh, he's been in the risk management space for many years, which is
W. Curtis Preston:a real, like a, it's like an adjunct space, I think to, to ours.
W. Curtis Preston:He's the founder and CEO of Global Risk Community.
W. Curtis Preston:He's the host of the Risk Management Podcast.
W. Curtis Preston:Welcome to the podcast Boris.
W. Curtis Preston:Agranovich.
Boris Agranovich:Thank you, thank you.
Boris Agranovich:And for inviting me to this, uh, amazing podcast.
Boris Agranovich:You were actually few months back on my, uh, podcast the risk management show,
Boris Agranovich:and it was, uh, great, great experience.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, and now, uh, kinda audience, uh, uh, put a lot of, uh, Views
Boris Agranovich:on your podcast, uh, episode, so I
Boris Agranovich:am very happy.
Boris Agranovich:First of all, from my name and my accent, probably you will know that I was, uh,
Boris Agranovich:originally from, uh, this part of the world where now, uh, war is going on.
Boris Agranovich:So I was born in Ukraine now, and I studied in Russia.
Boris Agranovich:Came to Israel and now I live in the Netherlands.
Boris Agranovich:So , it's a little bit a mix.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, and I started in IT space and I, uh, then I moved more to, to banking.
Boris Agranovich:Banking, uh, like, uh, uh, insurance company, finance in banks.
Boris Agranovich:And I worked there on a kind of, Um, angle, like I put, uh, it angle into
Boris Agranovich:risk management business and, uh, because it banks were kinda in nineties
Boris Agranovich:and, uh, in beginning of 2000, have to be, to put some, a lot of it system
Boris Agranovich:to, uh, Upgrade the risk management.
Boris Agranovich:So I was a kind business analyst and then I became a risk manager.
Boris Agranovich:So in 20, I think 20, 20 10, I became, um, independent consultant.
Boris Agranovich:And when I had some pause in my assignments and wanted to, uh, kind
Boris Agranovich:of started to communicate with my peers all over the world, but it.
Boris Agranovich:Difficult with current tools and one best tool I found was LinkedIn, but
Boris Agranovich:it still kind provided a lot of noise.
Boris Agranovich:So I decided create to create a community for, uh, Like-minded people.
Boris Agranovich:So I created this global risk community.com, which I initially wanted
Boris Agranovich:to, uh, uh, to create as a kinda front office of my, uh, consultant business.
Boris Agranovich:But it kind of grew, grew, and now it has more than, Total, I
Boris Agranovich:think a hundred thousand people.
Boris Agranovich:So I, I'm concentrated mostly, uh, mainly on the growing of this site.
Boris Agranovich:Not on my consulting and risk management, but I'm on kind of, On the
Boris Agranovich:front, on the front page, as we say on the front page of both website and
Boris Agranovich:events, what happening in community.
Boris Agranovich:Although I'm not in the trenches as in the past, but I'm more kind in conversation
Boris Agranovich:like with you and other guys in the space.
Boris Agranovich:So I can tell you a little bit more about, uh, what happening in our industry.
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:Uh, you know, before we talk about risk management, I, I'm just curious.
W. Curtis Preston:You know, I, I've, I've born and raised in, you know, the US right?
W. Curtis Preston:And here you pretty much need to speak one language, but you have lived in.
W. Curtis Preston:different, very different languages.
W. Curtis Preston:Right.
W. Curtis Preston:So you have, you have Russian, you have, um, you know, uh, Hebrew, you have, uh,
W. Curtis Preston:Dutch, and you mentioned you speak, so you speak a little bit of each of those,
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, actually I speak Russian, even Ukrainian also
Boris Agranovich:because I was born in Ukrainian.
Boris Agranovich:So
W. Curtis Preston:right.
Boris Agranovich:when I was there it kind of, uh, uh, was.
Boris Agranovich:Considerate kind sub language.
Boris Agranovich:But now because of Ukrainians growing, it is now kind independent language.
Boris Agranovich:So you can say, now I'm proud that I can mention Ukrainian as my language
Boris Agranovich:additional, because before that it was kinda a subset of Russian
Boris Agranovich:language, but uh, it's separate word.
Boris Agranovich:I, for 25 years and I moved to Israel, I had to, to study some
Boris Agranovich:another language and I studied.
Boris Agranovich:I lived in Israel and worked in IT company.
Boris Agranovich:Then I moved, uh, to Europe.
Boris Agranovich:To the Netherlands where I have to start, uh, from my Israeli company.
Boris Agranovich:So I started Dutch little bit, but English was on background, so English remained.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, little bit on third language.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, But I still, uh, I like more Latino, so I, uh, I studied little
Boris Agranovich:bit Spanish also, not, not perfectly, but enough to, to go to a vacation
Boris Agranovich:and, uh, not to be afraid of, uh, stage things, uh, happening to me.
W. Curtis Preston:So you, you can, you can converse in all those languages.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, yeah.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah.
Boris Agranovich:On basic levels.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, on basic levels.
W. Curtis Preston:I find, I find that fascinating.
W. Curtis Preston:That's just, that's just absolutely amazing.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, it's a good for risk management.
Boris Agranovich:It's good for risk management,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:I was gonna say with all the countries,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:a dial, X-ray or languages.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:And uh, I think I told you, you know, that, I mean, my, my Russian is very small
W. Curtis Preston:things like Bre and, and, and, right.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, , I have that, that phrase leftover from the eighties.
Boris Agranovich:uh, 30 years ago in T, but uh, in Russia, it uh, kinda
Boris Agranovich:of degradated, uh, other a direction.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah,
W. Curtis Preston:And I believe in, in, um, Ukrainian, you say, right?
W. Curtis Preston:Uh, instead of,
Boris Agranovich:it.
W. Curtis Preston:yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, it probably doesn't even register for you.
W. Curtis Preston:You just sort of do it.
Boris Agranovich:No, I know know now because of this war, I
Boris Agranovich:listen more Ukrainian news, so my Ukrainian was is is kinda a
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Uh,
Boris Agranovich:restoring in my, my, my mind.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Awesome.
W. Curtis Preston:right.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:So I, I think one of the questions I had is, I know
Prasanna Malaiyandi:when you, when I saw that, oh, you're focused on risk management, I was like,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:what is risk management right now?
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, good question.
Boris Agranovich:I'm, I'm not sure that I, I can get, get you, give you all kind
Boris Agranovich:of, uh, uh, uh, academic answer.
Boris Agranovich:But for my, uh, my knowledge, uh, as, uh, layman in layman
Boris Agranovich:terms, if you have your business.
Boris Agranovich:It's kind of you looking forward and to how much you earn.
Boris Agranovich:But you also need to, uh, kind of be a person who knows what can be wrong
Boris Agranovich:in your business so you can, uh, take action when it's, when they are needed
Boris Agranovich:to, uh, protect your, uh, bottom line and also catastrophic events for.
Boris Agranovich:What can happen, you can be financial, you can be exposed to financial risk, you
Boris Agranovich:can be exposed to operational risk, you can be exposed to, uh, governance risk.
Boris Agranovich:If you don't do some procedures and uh, some regulations, you
Boris Agranovich:can be exposed to cyber risk.
Boris Agranovich:And I believe there is now also climate risk.
Boris Agranovich:So this kind of risks, you have to, depending on.
Boris Agranovich:Complexity of your business, you, you have to manage all these risks
Boris Agranovich:and depending of, for example, if you are a bank, you probably will have.
Boris Agranovich:Different, uh, risks inside financial risks.
Boris Agranovich:For example, banks have, uh, creditors, they have, uh, they
Boris Agranovich:have, uh, also market risk.
Boris Agranovich:If they trade different currency, they have, uh, within credit risk,
Boris Agranovich:they also have counterparty risk.
Boris Agranovich:So it's kind of becoming a very, very complicated and all this, um, models now
Boris Agranovich:with all this mathematical models and, uh, Of, uh, AI and ml, this is becoming
Boris Agranovich:very, uh, uh, very, uh, strictly, uh, uh, divided because some, some guys
Boris Agranovich:only, uh, specialized in model risk.
Boris Agranovich:In cont model models, uh, developing models in counterparty risks.
Boris Agranovich:Some guys are, uh, specializing in developing.
Boris Agranovich:Ed risk.
Boris Agranovich:So this all, all, uh, very contr, uh, contemplated.
W. Curtis Preston:that, that phrase that you used, you said counterparty risk.
Boris Agranovich:Counterpart, for example, you now you have this
Boris Agranovich:now crisis with crypto, right?
Boris Agranovich:Uh, crypto exchanges, right?
Boris Agranovich:And because they were a counterparty with other guys.
Boris Agranovich:That probably didn't get, uh, any wrong, but cause they, uh, probably, uh,
Boris Agranovich:failed to deliver, uh, to pay on loans.
Boris Agranovich:A lot of, uh, uh, their counterparties exposed to counterparty risk,
Boris Agranovich:uh, from this FDX exchange.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:they're not directly at risk, but because they were associated
Prasanna Malaiyandi:through some lineage, they're at risk now.
Boris Agranovich:Exactly.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:So I'm just thinking though, that like as a company owner,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:a business owner, you're so focused on building the business, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Who even thinks about all of these risks out there?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Like Curtis, I know you had a business
Prasanna Malaiyandi:before, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:?Yeah, Yeah, I know Boris does, but Curtis like, Been business owner before.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Have you thought about these things?
W. Curtis Preston:Not, certainly not in the way that, that Boris did.
W. Curtis Preston:I mean, we, we mainly thought about, I don't know, I, I think I thought about.
W. Curtis Preston:Things that I felt I had some, no, I felt some things that I
W. Curtis Preston:felt I had some control over.
W. Curtis Preston:Right.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, and the risks mainly for me at the time were financial risks.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, the, there was the concern because we were such a small company.
W. Curtis Preston:There was the concern, there was the competitive risk of, of a, you
W. Curtis Preston:know, a, a much larger competitor, basically deciding to get into
W. Curtis Preston:the same business that we were in.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, but the thing is, I was such, I was such small potatoes that, like,
W. Curtis Preston:considering them a risk was almost, it, it was like, I just, you know what I mean?
W. Curtis Preston:It's like, um, I don't know.
W. Curtis Preston:It's hard to, hard to describe, but I, I don't think I thought
W. Curtis Preston:about it certainly in the way that, that Boris thinks about it.
W. Curtis Preston:I, you know, and of course I'm a backup guy, so I think about those risks.
Boris Agranovich:Ah.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, it's part of, I think, cyber risk or it risk, I think, and what you talk about.
Boris Agranovich:Uh uh, uh, sorry, I may be interrupt.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, but what you said about it is business risk.
Boris Agranovich:What you say, what, what, what is related to competitors or your business?
Boris Agranovich:Um, business plans or business?
Boris Agranovich:Uh, kind of, uh, uh, product products.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, we call it, uh, business risk.
Boris Agranovich:We don't put it in the category for kind of finance it cyber, so it's kinda
Boris Agranovich:business rules that actually shouldn't be only, uh, Processed by risk people,
Boris Agranovich:they should be kinda processed by, uh, business people, but they have
Boris Agranovich:to be, uh, supported by risk people.
Boris Agranovich:So they, if you produce a new product, product, for example,
Boris Agranovich:risk people have to look on it.
Boris Agranovich:What is it about maybe some regulatory risk or credit
Boris Agranovich:risk or some, some other risk?
W. Curtis Preston:Mm-hmm.
W. Curtis Preston:Interesting.
W. Curtis Preston:And so as a, so I'm assuming at a.
W. Curtis Preston:A company would have a risk manager, right?
W. Curtis Preston:Would, each like, I don't know how large a company would be before
W. Curtis Preston:they have a risk manager, like an employee versus a risk management
Prasanna Malaiyandi:It.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:It probably also depends on the industry.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Like I could imagine a financial company, even if they're small,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:They probably have a risk function in there versus like a tech company
Prasanna Malaiyandi:may not do it until it's a certain.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, absolutely.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, because I was originally from banking in the insurance industry.
Boris Agranovich:So this is where, uh, they have to, uh, have a risk management, even department
Boris Agranovich:of risk management, where they all will do, they develop all these models for
Boris Agranovich:this, uh, different types of, uh, risk.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, and they have to kind of contact, uh, my regular with the regulators about
Boris Agranovich:all these new rules, uh, like socks and.
Boris Agranovich:But now I think many other companies, uh, also develop risk management department.
Boris Agranovich:I think, uh, for example, if you look at health and safety industry,
Boris Agranovich:there are also kind health and.
Boris Agranovich:Separate probably, um, division of risk management.
Boris Agranovich:And they have to, they have all their own, their own kinda regulators.
Boris Agranovich:Also, if you look at, uh, industry and now with climate change is all
Boris Agranovich:related also with this compliance.
Boris Agranovich:So, uh, although risk and compliance or very often different, uh, different,
Boris Agranovich:uh, disciplines, they sometimes kinda, uh, glued together to.
Boris Agranovich:Have a kinda based basic kinda risk management or compliance
Boris Agranovich:department in some, some topics.
Boris Agranovich:So they, for example, if a new, uh, and compliance procedure arises
Boris Agranovich:from, uh, from regulation, they have to up and develop response.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Yeah.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:I, I'm also just thinking like, so I work worse in privacy, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:And so anytime you have like regulators or when decisions get made right
Prasanna Malaiyandi:now, it's like, okay, how does that impact everything else that's being.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Or that has been built already.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Right.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:And what is the risk there associated with some of those?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Um, I guess the one question I had for you, Boris, is so I
Prasanna Malaiyandi:understand like there's people who go thinking about the risks.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Can you talk a little bit about like, why should people even
Prasanna Malaiyandi:care about these risks, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Like, what are, what's the outcome if they ignore these risks or if they
Prasanna Malaiyandi:didn't have a risk manager or something?
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, it depends, of course, if you are a small business,
Boris Agranovich:uh, you don't have to have a specific risk management role, uh, in your.
Boris Agranovich:Company, but at least you have to manage your risks yourself.
Boris Agranovich:For example, maybe you have a kind small understanding of what your risks are.
Boris Agranovich:Maybe you have an account and accounted and he will talk or
Boris Agranovich:she will talk to you of business.
Boris Agranovich:It'll enough.
Boris Agranovich:For example, you know you have a pay, you have credit cause you, you
Boris Agranovich:have invoices probably you have some days from your invoices and probably
Boris Agranovich:it'll be about maybe one month.
Boris Agranovich:And some big companies they don't even pay after three months.
Boris Agranovich:So it's uh, kinda shame.
Boris Agranovich:And some people have to, to manage their invoices and
Boris Agranovich:probably liquidity so they don't,
Boris Agranovich:invoices don't.
W. Curtis Preston:that that was.
W. Curtis Preston:That was one thing I remember as a small company, I, I often did business
W. Curtis Preston:with very large companies and we were doing, you know, we would be sending
W. Curtis Preston:an invoice and we're doing an, we were putting on events an event.
W. Curtis Preston:When you put on events, it's very costly and so we wanted as much as
W. Curtis Preston:possible for the customers to pay up front and many of them would, and our
W. Curtis Preston:contract would specify that they're supposed to, but those bigger companies,
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah, I know we're not gonna do that.
W. Curtis Preston:And what are you gonna do?
W. Curtis Preston:Do you want our money?
W. Curtis Preston:You want our, you want our money in 90 days or do you want no money?
W. Curtis Preston:Right.
W. Curtis Preston:And you have, you have no power to, uh, You know, I remember,
W. Curtis Preston:like, I remember one time when I, I showed them our, our msa, right?
W. Curtis Preston:Our master services agreement, this one vendor, and they're like, that's cute.
W. Curtis Preston:Here's ours, sign it, or, you know, walk.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:was like, oh, okay.
W. Curtis Preston:Well I guess we're signing their msa, right?
W. Curtis Preston:And they're like, we do a net 180, right?
W. Curtis Preston:You.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, wow.
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, I know these companies, but now I think, uh, regulators in Europe
Boris Agranovich:at least, they kind of demand, uh, demand that, uh, these days, uh, uh,
Boris Agranovich:payment days will be less, I think it's now standard 30 days in, in Europe.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, so, uh, kind of small guys also have more, uh, uh, power.
Boris Agranovich:Because, yeah, it's one of the biggest risks if you do an event like this.
Boris Agranovich:And do you, you have to pay from your pocket.
Boris Agranovich:And do you have a liquidity issue with don't, you're not to pay your for a a,
W. Curtis Preston:remember sitting there often sitting there with over a
W. Curtis Preston:hundred thousand dollars in receivables.
W. Curtis Preston:Very little in the bank.
W. Curtis Preston:Meanwhile, I need to make payroll.
W. Curtis Preston:Right.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, I'll tell you, I did, we had, we did have a clause in our contract,
W. Curtis Preston:um, and it's a, um, it's a company that persona that you and I both know,
W. Curtis Preston:obviously I'm not gonna shame 'em on the podcast, but they were, they
W. Curtis Preston:were a company that I worked with.
W. Curtis Preston:And what it was, was I had a clause and a contract that said after 30
W. Curtis Preston:days we start adding, it was like 1%.
W. Curtis Preston:To the invoice, um, that it was like, it was like it was either 1% or half
W. Curtis Preston:a percent per day to the invoice after, after a certain period of
W. Curtis Preston:time, it might have been 60 days.
W. Curtis Preston:Right.
W. Curtis Preston:And there was this one customer I had that, um, they were blowing
W. Curtis Preston:me off and, um, I, uh, I kept, I kept sending them updated invoices.
W. Curtis Preston:I'm like, your invoice is now a hundred percent more.
W. Curtis Preston:, you know, because of compounded penalties and at some point it got to
W. Curtis Preston:actually 150% of the original value, you know, or 250%, if you will, of
W. Curtis Preston:the original value of the invoice.
W. Curtis Preston:And they were blowing me off and then they got acquired or
W. Curtis Preston:they were going to get acquired.
W. Curtis Preston:By a company.
W. Curtis Preston:And I was like, oh, this is like, if I don't, I gotta do it now, right?
W. Curtis Preston:If I don't fix it now.
W. Curtis Preston:And I, um, I went and I went to, uh, there used to be this
W. Curtis Preston:company called, uh, jigsaw.
W. Curtis Preston:The, then it got acquired by Salesforce.
W. Curtis Preston:That was like where you could go and you could just easily get the, you
W. Curtis Preston:know, some key names from company.
W. Curtis Preston:And I went and I got the ceo, the cfo.
W. Curtis Preston:The chairman of the board and I got all their contact information and
W. Curtis Preston:then I sent them registered letters and emails and, and everything, and
W. Curtis Preston:I basically said, I have a contract with your name on it, and you have not
W. Curtis Preston:contested a contract you now owe me.
W. Curtis Preston:I mean, it went from like $18,000 to $40,000.
W. Curtis Preston:And, and, um, and you're about to be acquired.
W. Curtis Preston:And I have this, this is a, this is a lie against your company essentially.
W. Curtis Preston:Amazingly, I got a FedEx the next day with a check with a check for $40,000.
W. Curtis Preston:That
Boris Agranovich:No, you don't pay lawyers
W. Curtis Preston:day.
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:That was a good, that was a good day.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, so there was something else that you and I talked about in the pre-call.
W. Curtis Preston:You mentioned this thing you have called the, the, um, darn it.
W. Curtis Preston:What did you call it?
Boris Agranovich:We, we, we have a, we as a global risk community,
Boris Agranovich:we often create kind of products kind emanating from our community.
Boris Agranovich:So we created a GRC business, continue to tool it, which you are probably,
Boris Agranovich:you are interested, your users can find on our cited Global Risk Academy.
Boris Agranovich:Don't come.
Boris Agranovich:So yeah, this is the.
W. Curtis Preston:am really curious when we talk about, I always talk about
W. Curtis Preston:data protection and backup, and Dr.
W. Curtis Preston:And I always mention that that is a component.
W. Curtis Preston:Of business continuance overall.
W. Curtis Preston:So I am curious from your vantage point, besides the idea of recovering
W. Curtis Preston:your computing environment, what else does somebody need to have
W. Curtis Preston:in a business continuance plan?
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, absolutely.
Boris Agranovich:So, um, I will tell you that, uh, our two kit contains, uh,
Boris Agranovich:different various, um, kind of.
Boris Agranovich:Document.
Boris Agranovich:For example, we have business impact analysis questionnaire.
Boris Agranovich:So you will have to go through all your inventories and do some work.
Boris Agranovich:Then you have a BCP template, which is a business continuity plan template.
Boris Agranovich:So you will have to, to work through all this, uh, processes
Boris Agranovich:and, uh, figure out what is, uh, important, what is less important.
Boris Agranovich:Then we have business continuity, uh, recovery, uh, questionnaire.
Boris Agranovich:And then we have a business, uh, uh, procedures like, uh,
Boris Agranovich:business risk analysis template.
Boris Agranovich:So it's all very documented based on the best practices in banks and
Boris Agranovich:very, uh, sophisticated institution.
Boris Agranovich:So we have also Chris crisis management plan that actually when we spoke about
Boris Agranovich:with you, with small companies, I think it's this plan should be available for.
Boris Agranovich:Even for small companies.
Boris Agranovich:So also sample, uh, sample vulnerability chart with all this appliances and uh, big
Boris Agranovich:machinery that you have should be there.
Boris Agranovich:So it's kind of a complete scoring methodology that will help, uh, even
Boris Agranovich:uh, people who are not, um, familiar with this, uh, uh, discipline.
Boris Agranovich:They can download it and they can just, uh, start from scratch filling it.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, and also it's has some glossary, so, For terms, people who don't know
Boris Agranovich:anything can, uh, can uh, see, see what, what is the important stuff.
Boris Agranovich:So also technology recovery plan there.
Boris Agranovich:So this is all.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:I, I'm thinking this is super helpful for
Prasanna Malaiyandi:people who aren't aware, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Of what risk is and what question should they be even trying to find the answers
Prasanna Malaiyandi:for, because they may not be, it's like, When you're like, your insurance carrier
Prasanna Malaiyandi:says, oh, how much insurance do you want?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:You're like, I don't know how much insurance I need.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:What are the questions I should be asking?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:To figure that out.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:And it looks like this toolkit sort of helps you go through and answer
Prasanna Malaiyandi:those questions and figure out, okay, where do I potentially have risks?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:And, oh, I may not have thought about crisis management like Curtis, for when
Prasanna Malaiyandi:you had your small company, did you have a plan in place in case someone got sick or.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:flight got missed, like when you're going to an event,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:right?
W. Curtis Preston:yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:Flight got, yeah, flight got missed, but, but like I, I was the main
W. Curtis Preston:speaker at these events that we put on.
W. Curtis Preston:There was no plan for Curtis gets sick, right.
W. Curtis Preston:Curtis gets.
W. Curtis Preston:Curtis gets covid and there's no speaker.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, the, we, we had, we had all kinds of, uh, travel issues
W. Curtis Preston:over the, over the years, right?
W. Curtis Preston:Because we were often.
W. Curtis Preston:It was Monday morning was always a difficult, cuz we do a, we do an event
W. Curtis Preston:on Tuesday, we'd do an event on Thursday.
W. Curtis Preston:We would fly, you know, so we're flying on the very first flight on a Monday morning.
W. Curtis Preston:Again, managing risk.
W. Curtis Preston:The risk was that the flight you're on is delayed and or canceled.
W. Curtis Preston:And so, You might wanna fly in the afternoon, but if that flight is delayed,
W. Curtis Preston:you're not making it to the city.
W. Curtis Preston:So we would fly out on the first available flight, even if that was
W. Curtis Preston:six in the morning, and we would fly to to, to wherever we were going.
W. Curtis Preston:That was the biggest risk, was that the entire, cuz we're all in, we all lived in
W. Curtis Preston:San Diego, we were all in the same flight.
W. Curtis Preston:If that flight was delayed.
W. Curtis Preston:There was no event happening.
W. Curtis Preston:Right.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, there was no backup team.
W. Curtis Preston:There was no, there was no nothing.
W. Curtis Preston:And, um, and I, I remember, um, uh, probably the worst thing
W. Curtis Preston:that happened to us while we were traveling, we landed in, um, Houston.
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah, I'm talking to you Houston.
W. Curtis Preston:I will never forget this.
W. Curtis Preston:I landed, we landed in Houston and we went to go to dinner
W. Curtis Preston:and we weren't, um, we weren't.
W. Curtis Preston:Paying attention.
W. Curtis Preston:And we had our backpacks in the backseat and we went to dinner and they broke
W. Curtis Preston:in and they stole all our backpacks.
W. Curtis Preston:So they stole all three laptops, all three iPads.
W. Curtis Preston:So we had to do the event like we had, everything was in like Google Docs and
W. Curtis Preston:what not, but we had no laptops to get to Google Docs like we were doing, we were
W. Curtis Preston:doing stuff on phones and stuff like that.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, But the, yeah, that was, I think that's the worst
W. Curtis Preston:thing that happened to it.
W. Curtis Preston:That one and the time when I went to go, it was the morning before
W. Curtis Preston:we're, you know, we're getting ready to travel and we had these two cases
W. Curtis Preston:of equipment that we always traveled with and um, uh, I won't say who, but.
W. Curtis Preston:She might be the singer on the theme song of this podcast who left the garage
W. Curtis Preston:door open with my equipment in the garage and someone stole all my equipment.
W. Curtis Preston:And I, I found that out the day before the show.
W. Curtis Preston:So, no, we never had a backup plan.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, you know, the backup plan was we don't have an.
Boris Agranovich:Mm-hmm.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, that's just, that's just the way.
W. Curtis Preston:So cur this, this, uh, this toolkit that you're talking about
W. Curtis Preston:is this, do they pay for this?
W. Curtis Preston:Resources is a free resource.
W. Curtis Preston:How, how does that work?
Boris Agranovich:No, it's, it's actually paid the resource.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, they can find it on Global Risk Academy.
Boris Agranovich:It's,
Boris Agranovich:uh, yeah, it's 1, 1 79, uh, US dollars.
Boris Agranovich:But I think if you, if they wanted to have some initial, uh, uh, free
Boris Agranovich:resources, we have a lot of them on our site at, uh, also at Global Risk
Boris Agranovich:Academy as a core site and on global risk, global risk community.com as
Boris Agranovich:a kinda block event site, uh, whole.
W. Curtis Preston:So it's global risk academy.com,
Boris Agranovich:global risk Academy is a kind of course site, uh, online
Boris Agranovich:courses for our community people.
Boris Agranovich:Normally we,
W. Curtis Preston:sure it's, it's global risk academy.com.
Boris Agranovich:yeah, global risk
Boris Agranovich:academy.com.
W. Curtis Preston:Okay.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:So if people wanted to just learn more about risk
Prasanna Malaiyandi:management, they could probably go to the global risk community website, right?
Prasanna Malaiyandi:To read the blogs, understand more about it.
Boris Agranovich:They can go, they can read it free, even if
Boris Agranovich:they don't want to be a member.
Boris Agranovich:But if they become, if they become member, it's free.
Boris Agranovich:And then you will, they will get, uh, once per week newsletter, which they
Boris Agranovich:can also unsubscribe if they don't want to have a lot of emails in their box.
Boris Agranovich:But, uh, in, in mainly this is, uh, because.
Boris Agranovich:Important.
Boris Agranovich:They, they can read the blogs, they can participate in a lot of events.
Boris Agranovich:We and our partners produce and also read some partnership, um, posts, for
Boris Agranovich:example, guys, uh, produce some research and some, uh, kind of benchmark reports.
Boris Agranovich:So this all we deliver on our.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:I was just curious.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:I know Boris, you talked about sort of climate risk.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Is that something that's new and like an up and coming research area or risk area
Prasanna Malaiyandi:that people have to now start considering?
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, I think for big companies.
Boris Agranovich:And now with all this esg, uh, uh, you know, isg, what do you call it?
Boris Agranovich:Environment, um, uh,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:The environment sustainability
Boris Agranovich:oh, sustainability and, uh,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Yeah.
Boris Agranovich:Governance, I think, or something like this, uh, because it's now
Boris Agranovich:on govern government level over the world.
Boris Agranovich:They decide, uh, kinda, uh, co2, uh, emission plans to, uh, stop
Boris Agranovich:trying to stop climate, uh, change.
Boris Agranovich:And, uh, it's to have a lot of, uh, consequences on the level of companies,
Boris Agranovich:for example, in, uh, Oil and gas and, uh, mining companies because they use
Boris Agranovich:a lot of resources and they have to.
Boris Agranovich:For example, now in Europe, I think we own a a, uh, wrong, uh, of this is ISG
Boris Agranovich:because, uh, a of uh, Very wise, uh, uh, policy, politics, policy people in,
Boris Agranovich:for example, Germany, they decided to get rid of all this oil, gas, and such a
Boris Agranovich:warm company as warm country as Germany.
Boris Agranovich:They decided to.
Boris Agranovich:Rely on sun and, uh, wind, uh, and uh, also on the Russian, on the Russian gas.
Boris Agranovich:And of course in this, uh, climate, they now, they don't have Russian energy.
Boris Agranovich:And the sun Sunday weather is also doesn't help.
Boris Agranovich:Uh, so now we help, we have a lot of, uh, issues with sg.
Boris Agranovich:Because people, uh, stopped, uh, in investing in oil and gas.
Boris Agranovich:But this all kinda, uh, not ag to blame, but uh, kinda, uh, mind of this politics.
Boris Agranovich:This politics intervene in the business.
Boris Agranovich:And, uh, also it kind, um, um, prevents, uh, a good develop.
Boris Agranovich:and of course it's a kind of social movement, you know, all
Boris Agranovich:this greenwash, uh, it's kind of on television people, uh, doing a lot
Boris Agranovich:of demonstration and, uh, politic and starting to kind of take action.
Boris Agranovich:And because of this, uh, we have such a big problems, but ESG itself is a
Boris Agranovich:good idea, but, uh, it, uh, produces.
Boris Agranovich:Many, uh, results that are not, uh, kind of, uh, uh, beneficial
Boris Agranovich:for, for all, uh, people.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Yeah.
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah, I, I think that's, you know, anytime you have a big.
W. Curtis Preston:Social movement like that.
W. Curtis Preston:Uh, like in this case, environmental science, we have the same
W. Curtis Preston:problem in, in cloud, right?
W. Curtis Preston:So people are, people are moving to the cloud and you get a lot of cloud
W. Curtis Preston:washing, you'll get a lot of people are like, oh, we're cloud, we're good.
W. Curtis Preston:You know, it's like, eh, you're not really cloud, right?
W. Curtis Preston:Um, and um, you know, we, we did a couple of episodes.
W. Curtis Preston:I don't know if you.
W. Curtis Preston:You being where you're at.
W. Curtis Preston:Did, did you remember that, that cl the story about the OVH cloud, uh, the
W. Curtis Preston:giant fire that was there a couple years
Prasanna Malaiyandi:France, I think
W. Curtis Preston:in France?
Boris Agranovich:Um,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:they're a cloud company that hosted data
Prasanna Malaiyandi:centers in containers, cargo
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah, and there was a giant fire that that took out
W. Curtis Preston:a couple of data centers and a lot of customers actually lost data even though
W. Curtis Preston:they had paid for the backup system.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, that I'm surprised that it.
W. Curtis Preston:That it hasn't made it over your way, but then again, you
W. Curtis Preston:don't focus on DR and stuff.
W. Curtis Preston:But that, that popped, that popped on my radar pretty, pretty quick.
W. Curtis Preston:Um, any final thoughts that you have, Boris, uh, that you know, things that
W. Curtis Preston:you would've wanted to talk about?
Boris Agranovich:Yeah, I think, uh, with you guys, I think we have a lot of, uh, in
Boris Agranovich:common because you're also managing risk and I, it's of course, it's kind of, uh,
Boris Agranovich:one of the, uh, many, uh, facets of risk.
W. Curtis Preston:Mm-hmm.
Boris Agranovich:it's in, uh, it domain.
Boris Agranovich:I'm not sure it's only, but maybe organizational domain.
Boris Agranovich:So I think, uh, if people have some more questions and uh, uh, about, uh,
Boris Agranovich:risk management also in about this business, continue to talk it, they can
Boris Agranovich:go to our site, uh, and check it out.
Boris Agranovich:Um, it's available and, uh, I'm always open for questions in blog
Boris Agranovich:and discussions, uh, and event.
Boris Agranovich:So also some people who want to join our podcast.
Boris Agranovich:As you guys, uh, you joined, welcome to discuss this important topic of business
Boris Agranovich:continuity and, uh, disaster recovery.
Boris Agranovich:We're happy to, to provide, uh, your view to, to our.
W. Curtis Preston:Yeah, absolutely.
W. Curtis Preston:And, uh, persona great with your questions as well,
Prasanna Malaiyandi:No thank you Curtis.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Good luck with the floor and Boris it.
Prasanna Malaiyandi:Nice chatting with you.
W. Curtis Preston:and, uh, and I'll thank, I'll thank
W. Curtis Preston:you to our, uh, listeners.
W. Curtis Preston:Make sure to subscribe so that you can restore it all.
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