September 30, 2023
Southwest Airlines reputation crisis. At crisis day 277, Southwest equity is under performing the S&P500 index by 36.5%.
D&O
September 5, 2023
“Lightning does strike,” (Kossovsky) said, but firms that can demonstrate that they have developed effective governance systems and implemented thoughtful risk management experience a much different impact: “That’s where enterprise risk management creates value.”
August 17, 2023
Backlash Over AI Work. Companies can mitigate the risk of backlash by encouraging collaboration between IT, enterprise risk management and communications within the organization, as well as getting the board involved in overseeing the risk management process, said Steel City Re’s Kossovsky.
June 19, 2023
Data-driven independent intelligence. Among the lessons we should learn about reputation risk from Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, Credit Suisse and others is that directors need better, more objective information about what stakeholders expect: the source of reputation value.
May 10, 2023
Parametric reputation health risk monitoring reports. Corporate leaders, from chief marketing officers to risk management professionals to boards of directors, need better monitoring tools for risks to reputation health and the costs of reputation loss – tools like the kind of reputation volatility assessments that are used by certain reputation insurers.
April 10, 2023
Panic and stock share dump. Thriving in a tornado corridor or flood plain demands fortitude and a reliable risk strategy. The same goes for investing in equity markets. In times of panic — think Southwest Airlines, Norfolk Southern and Silicon Valley Bank — investor moxie may give way to stock share dumps. […] Integrated processes, timely intelligence and good risk communications will help investors appreciate and value risk strategies and not panic.
March 3, 2023
ESG rhetoric pledge regrets. With ESG becoming as important to some companies as EBITDA and marketing departments ramping up the ESG rhetoric, the effective scope of dutiful oversight has expanded…The Delaware court increasingly sees oversight of all things mission-critical as a board duty.
February 28, 2023
“For the first time since its landmark Caremark decision, the Delaware Chancery Court has allowed a breach of oversight claim to proceed against a corporate officer when it declined to dismiss claims brought by stockholders against David Fairhurst, McDonald’s former head of human resources…”.[kos] The bottom line is that law and society are expecting better management and oversight—a touch of common sense many would say—and that disappointment (read, shift in expectations leading to anger and disappointment, aka, reputation crisis) is playing out in the courts….Companies and boards need a solid, universally applicable management and oversight process that is forward-looking to manage risk strategically. The quality of that process needs to be proactively authenticated with insurance. Compliance-focused controls, which by design are backward looking—and the audits that authenticate them—are necessary but with the evolving expectations of society, apparently no longer sufficient.
February 20, 2023
Mission critical risk denial can be costly. A holiday flight cancellation fiasco by Southwest Airlines crushed the company’s market capitalization and caused the company to take an $800 million dollar write-down for Q4 and record losses three times greater than analysts had expected. Equity returns 42 days into the crisis show Southwest trailing the Dow Jones U.S. Airlines Index by 18.4%. Had it merely kept pace with that index, Southwest’s market cap would have been more than $3.3 billion higher.
February 12, 2023
Demonstrating Quality and Effectiveness. In this recent post by the National Association of Corporate Directors, the lawyer authors write, “Documenting the board’s activities is a critical component of demonstrating management’s efforts to monitor relevant risks and board review of these efforts.” Under the DoJ’s enhanced enforcement guidelines, simply demonstrating effort is not sufficient. Demonstrating effectiveness—not merely effort—is crucial; and it is one of the strategic benefits of ESG and reputation insurances.