The annual RiskMinds International conference was held in Amsterdam during the first week of December. Now in its 26^th year, this event draws an extensive Chief Risk Officer (CRO) community from all continents, including many of the regular participants in the IIF’s various regional CRO Fora.

FirstRand CRO Jaco Grobler and former Bank of Queensland CRO Peter Deans joined the IIF’s Brad Carr and Richard Gray to discuss the conference’s major themes and CRO priorities. In particular, there was a heavy focus on climate risk, illustrated by insurers on the connection from ocean temperatures to the frequency and ferocity of catastrophic storm damage, and heeded by banks in terms of the need to urgently adjust their portfolios.

Another key topic was the conduct and reputational risks associated with how data and AI algorithms are used; where conduct had been the conference’s dominant theme in previous years, it is now manifesting itself very specifically with the ethical use of data. The risks associated with executing a digital transformation strategy were also prominent, and Peter also touches on the evolving landscape for RegTech in Australia.