Risk culture: Qualifying before quantifying

The Risk Culture series with Rachael Johnson moves to video, you can find earlier episodes in the series here: https://insights.zencast.website/ Get CPD points here: https://www.accaglobal.com/learning-a... Dr. Katrin Gülden Le Maire (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-katrin-g%C3%BClden-le-maire-16043/) joins ACCA’s Rachael Johnson to explore the importance of critical questioning, interdisciplinary thinking and human judgement in modern governance. From cyber ethics and organisational silos to the challenge of operationalising curiosity, the conversation examines why finance, risk and board leaders increasingly need to connect disciplines before they can meaningfully quantify risk and ultimately what matters – make better decisions. Dr. Katrin Gülden Le Maire’s Notes 🔹 1. Making Sense of Complexity • Learning how to ask pertinent questions that involve materiality, tangibility and financial impact through factors often outside the traditional scope of accountants/CFOs due to: * Business education * Scope of roles * Expertise * Requested responsibility and accountability exercised • Connecting sources of input from a variety of subjects to overcome silo mentality and divisional thinking. • Many issues have their foundations outside finance, data science and economics, where they are usually quantified and captured. • They are often qualified through disciplines such as: * Philosophy * Sociology * Biology * Anthropology * Political sciences * Theology • Organisations must learn to incorporate qualifications of issues into finance functions if they are not provided through: * ExCo * CEO strategy development * Managerial explanation * Board validation (Poorly defined or disputed issues can create real repercussions and missed opportunities.) • This is equally true for ethics, one of the three major pillars of philosophy. • Ethics is not conducted in isolation and is commonly accompanied by: * Metaphysics → "Is it real?" * Epistemology → "Is it right?" • Strong implications for: * IAS38 * Social capital * Fraud and identity theft * Political and corporate risks * Deepfakes * Memes 🔹 2. What Are We Dealing With When We Consider Ethics? • Understanding distinctions between: Tech Ethics: * Functional * Technical Cyber Ethics: * Relational * Spatial • Ideally: Culture = Life lived in common Rather than only entity-based regulatory obligations. • We need profound understanding in order to explain simply: * Transferability * Interoperability • Create a corporate "liminal space" where leaders can critically reflect on issues affecting organisational excellence. (This is also a leadership responsibility involving time management and prioritisation.) • Integrated, critical and recombination thinking are higher-order thinking models often expected in business and regulatory environments despite not being formally taught. Questions raised: • How do we qualify uncertainty and resulting risk? • How do we develop and calculate intergenerational understanding and application within potentially jurisdiction-less machine action? • How can governance function as a cultural lens? • Can we differentiate between tech ethics and cyber ethics, and to what extent is this useful without becoming trapped in semantic debate? 🔹 3. Asking Better Questions • Connected to contemporary higher and business education: * Scope * Effectiveness * Assumptions * Content • Requires higher-order thinking models that are often absent from traditional education settings. Effective questioning: ✓ Clarifies complexity ✓ Narrows issues ✓ Helps formulate the right questions ✓ Creates hierarchy and priorities ✓ Breaks challenges into manageable tasks ✓ Helps avoid incorrect assumptions Important distinction: Data ≠ Information ≠ Knowledge ≠ Insight ≠ Wisdom 🔹 4. Leadership Responsibility • Actual company realities often challenge our best ideas and ideals. Questions to consider: • What level of prioritisation exists? • What risk culture is genuinely lived within the organisation? • Where is responsibility positioned? • Who signs responsibility? • More importantly: who is accountable? #CyberEthics #TechEthics #Leadership #RiskCulture #Governance #AI #CorporateEthics