Happy New Year.
It is an honor to serve as RIMS’ 70th President. I am grateful for the confidence placed in me and for the opportunity to work alongside a global community of risk professionals who influence how organizations govern, allocate capital, and create long-term value across every region of the world.
I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on what this moment means for our profession. We are operating in a fundamentally different risk environment than even a few years ago. The frequency, severity, and interconnectedness of risk have accelerated. Volatility has become structural. Uncertainty is no longer episodic - it is systemic. We are now operating in a global polycrisis, where geopolitical, financial, technological, and climate risks no longer occur independently, but compound and amplify one another.
That reality places enterprise risk management at the center of strategy.
Today’s risks do not respect borders. Geopolitical tension, supply-chain disruption, cyber events, regulatory divergence, climate volatility, and financial contagion all propagate across jurisdictions in real time. Risk management has become a global discipline - requiring shared frameworks, common language, and coordination across regions, industries, and cultures.
Risk management today is no longer about protecting the balance sheet after something goes wrong. It is about understanding risk appetite, identifying strategic risk, quantifying uncertainty, and enabling informed trade-offs between risk and reward - across markets, across currencies, and across regulatory regimes. It is about helping leadership deploy capital where it creates sustainable advantage and resilience in a highly complex world.
This is why our profession is now embedded in the boardroom, in capital allocation, in M&A, in technology adoption, in supply-chain resilience, and in geopolitical and climate-related decision-making. ERM has become a core pillar of corporate governance and long-term enterprise value - globally.
But leadership in this environment requires continuous investment - in skills, data, analytics, governance frameworks, and professional judgment.
That is where RIMS plays a critical role.
I joined RIMS as a student. I was awarded a scholarship to attend RISKWORLD more than two decades ago, and I still remember walking into that conference and realizing that this profession had a global network, a shared discipline, and a common language for navigating uncertainty. That experience introduced me to the full scope of ERM - beyond the purchase of insurance, into strategy, governance, and decision science - and it changed the trajectory of my career.
Last year, RIMS celebrated 75 years of investing in that discipline. Seventy-five years of education, credentialing, professional development, benchmarking, and thought leadership. Seventy-five years of building the infrastructure that allows risk professionals - wherever they operate - to engage leadership with credibility and influence.
That investment is not slowing down. Not in this risk environment. Not with the Board, chapters, and volunteers who advance this mission around the world. And not under my watch.
The 2026 Board represents every dimension of our profession, industries, geographies, and career stages - united by a commitment to strengthen ERM as a strategic, decision-driving discipline. Together, we will continue to advance the frameworks, credentials, and global connections that allow risk professionals to translate uncertainty into insight and insight into action.
Smart investment, whether it be in capital, strategy, or people requires discipline, patience, and governance. When made consistently and aligned to enterprise objectives, it produces resilience, growth, and long-term value. The same is true for our profession. Do not hesitate to INVEST IN YOURSELF.
I look forward to building that future with you. Welcome to 2026.
Sincerely,
Manny Padilla, RIMS-CRMP
RIMS 2026 President