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Podcast
  • Operational Resilience for Financial Services with Rich Cooper

    May 22, 2021
  • Rich Cooper, Global Head of Financial Service Go-To-Market at Fusion Risk Management, explains how Fusion helps clients understand and employ existing data to remain resilient in the face of unexpected change.

    Hosted by Jeff Kavanaugh, VP and Head of the Infosys Knowledge Institute.

    “I think the financial service world has changed the way it's operated in the last 18 months more materially than it probably did in the last 20, 30 years.”

    “You see a hurricane coming, you can start preparing for that. There are things that you can anticipate and prepare for, but it takes the organization. It's not something that's just the risk manager's job or the IT department's job. It's about the firm. This is about HR departments, facilities departments, security departments, as well as traditional practices to make firms more resilient.”

    - Rich Cooper

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Show Notes

  • 00:21

    Rich, before joining Fusion, you founded two different companies. Could you tell us a bit about that?

  • 01:24

    Could you give us a working definition of operational resilience?

  • 01:59

    What is it that you do that takes something that people have to do and moves it to where they want to do it, or they're excited about the result from it?

  • 02:28

    Is it a platform? Can people plug into this platform?

  • 03:23

    In your mind, how were financial services prepared, or not prepared, for the global pandemic and what's been the fallout? Maybe the response.

  • 04:37

    Given that you are working with these household names, these financial institutions, what are the operational challenges that they're facing? Can you share those with us?

  • 05:56

    Can you give an example, a recent example, especially now, as people are coming out of the pandemic in certain countries, exactly how your service helps them address these challenges?

  • 07:32

    How often does your input data change? Is it refreshed continuously, is it periodic? Is it a mix?

  • 08:30

    So as you look backward, you've got the data, you're running these simulations. We'll look forward then. What do you do with it? How do you connect to the execution? The “doing something about that” simulation and operationalizing it.

  • 11:01

    How do you keep track and identify [the various risks of] a business? And then how do you communicate to [clients] on the risk register or the governance? How do you keep track of all these and how do you communicate the results?

  • 12:50

    How does operational resilience and Fusion’s work play into the ESG imperative that many financial institutions are now taking lead roles in?

  • 13:43

    Looking forward, what's your vision for operation and resilience in financial services?

  • 15:15

    Rich shares resource suggestions and how to reach him.

About Rich Cooper

Rich Cooper

Rich oversees the development and execution of Fusion’s business strategy serving the financial market worldwide. He focuses on building trusted top-level relationships within the financial services industry by providing thought leadership, market intelligence and best practice insight to support firms with innovation and transformation to address swiftly changing industry needs. This role includes leading Fusion’s operational resilience global working groups, partnering with the worldwide community of leaders developing best practices, driving innovation across the industry, and designing new solutions that solve the unique needs of the financial services community.

During his 20 plus years in the industry, Rich has consulted with many of the world's leading Global Financial Institutions and has lead practices in the US and Europe across the critical disciplines of operational resilience, cyber, and non-financial risk management, risk data and infrastructure, crisis management, disaster recovery, business continuity, program governance and operating model innovation.

Prior to joining Fusion, Rich lead Arbor Continuity, Inc., was a successful boutique consulting company he started after spending 14 successful years at Business Protection Systems International (BPSI), where he held various executive, service, and sales roles including company COO. Before joining BPSI, Richard was a founding partner and CEO of the Packing House, Inc., a leading document management company that was ultimately acquired by Iron Mountain, Inc.