Risk management is the identification, measurement and control of risk - broadly defined - within an organization. Every person in the bank has a role in the bank's risk management activities. These activities are central to the bank's culture and strategy, cut across disciplines and departments, drive the decisions of investors and clients, and ultimately separate banks that flourish from those that simply survive

Risk management is neither easy nor obvious. Banks deliberately take on market and credit risk in the hope of making a profit. Moreover, many of the institutions that have suffered large trading losses believed that they already had adequate risk management groups in place. In virtually all cases, however, the problems boiled down to lack of oversight. People took on excessive risk and nobody was watching.

Successful risk management requires a background in practice as well as theory. Globecon's Financial Risk Manager curriculum covers the theory, while a variety of other competencies, Webinars and workshops cover the practical aspects of specialized risk aggregation and quantitative tools such as stress testing, value-at-risk and scenario analysis. Finally, the Risk Management Practice Area includes less quantifiable dangers such as reputation and legal risk.

Globecon’s educational objectives in this area can be divided into three broad skill sets:

Diagnostics. These focus on analyzing the client's situation and needs as a first step towards advising the client on the appropriate solutions.

Alternatives. These focus on the features, mechanics and pricing and use of derivatives such as forwards, swaps, futures and options.

Market Conditions. These focus on interpreting the yield curve, credit spreads, equity prices and other market indicators to make hedging decisions.

Risk/Return Analysis. These focus on using tools to analyze risks to the client and the bank as well as the potential return to the client and the bank for different financing alternatives.

Standard capital markets learning systems include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Asset/Liability Management

• Credit Portfolio Risk

• Financial Institution Analysis

• Fixed-Income Analytics

• Interpreting Market Indicators and Benchmarks

• Introduction Derivative Alternatives

• Portfolio Management

• Risk Analytics

• Risk Measurement

• Specialized Derivatives

• Using Derivatives for Hedging

• VaR