by Mary Pat McCarthy, Tim Flynn
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Product Description
Text outlines how today's top corporate leaders are confronting and controlling risk in their organizations.
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Average Customer Review:
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Simplistic review of topics without much detail, 2006-09-05
I purchased this book hoping to get some deeper understanding of risk (e.g., approaches for measuring risk, how to quantify risk.) This book was way too high level to achieve that goal. It is a quick read with lots of case examples that would be helpful if you're giving someone a high level overview of Risk Management. However, if you want to understand these topics at a slightly detailed level or deeper, you should probably look at the more text book style books on risk management.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Mixed Bag, 2006-04-30
Although it makes a reasonable attempt to cover the waterfront and there were were a few gems in this book, I found the fluff factor to be too high to give it more than three stars. Silly quotations, folksy homilies, and a tiresome reliance on quotes from people who didn't really didn't have brilliant insights and an entire chapter (the second) that was clearly 25 pages of pure and irrelevent padding mar an otherwise credible treatment of the subject.
For example, in the first (introductory) section, one of the three chapters is almost a throw-away; the other two being helpful but not brilliant. In the second section (50 pages) on mitigation, readers are presented with a pretty basic treatment of the subject, with only a few deep insights. The last section, which comprises 100 pages (or about 1/3 of the book) the authors make an attempt to focus on the meat of the matter. Again, I was disappointed that they did so in little more than a superficial manner. The copyright being held by KPMG, I had to wonder if the soft-pedalling of the spectacular failures of executive, board and internal audit of the recent past were glossed over in the interests of not offending any current or potential clients.
While the authors occasionally make effective use of analogy, such as comparing risk to water, which can be channelled to good effect, there were parts I disagreed with (for instance, the role of the external auditor, much of which I believe can and should be performed by the internal auditors)
In summary, it is broad and reasoned enough to be credible, but not sufficiently insightful or scholarly to be held up as a classic in the important and ever-evolving area of corporate governance. A tip-off should have been a glance at the scanty endnotes; one of them being from the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvannia. Not to disparage theology (which goes largely unheralded as being the grandfather of risk management), but had the authors dealt more with the gritty aspects of CEO/Board success and failure with risk and tapped into the rich veins professional literature that has arisen over the last 2-3 decades (instead of skating over it) this book might have earned at least one more star. There is certainly no shortage of material from which to draw.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Not very Useful, 2005-02-23
The book delivers what it promises the so-called CEO perspective. Its just a chatty overview, useless for actual risk management at any level. Maybe they should use it as an introductory MBA book for those who have no exposure to finance at all.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
 Highly Recommended, 2004-04-21
This is an easily accessible, short and reasonably thorough introduction to the subject of risk. The authors touch on almost every dimension of the topic, including financial risk, operational risk, reputation risk, governance risk and even the risk of terrorist attack. The book might have been quite a bit shorter and somewhat more focused on corporate management if the authors, KPMG vice chairs Mary Pat McCarthy and Timothy P. Flynn had tightened their anecdotes about anti-terrorist preparations at the Olympic Games. However, they seem to have believed that they would lose readers unless they provided a few entertaining distractions, and they could be right. Though it breaks little new ground, it plows the old ground interestingly. We recommend this portable summary of useful information to the CEOs and board members who are its intended audience, as well as to anyone responsible for risk management.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Extremely helpful and informative, 2004-03-22
This book is perfect for the times, an informative, interesting read with illustrative real-world examples. I particularly enjoyed Chapter 7 "We the People of the Board" and Chapter 8 "Audit Committee: Risk and Regulation" for the practical guidance insight provided. All in all, a digestible primer on key risk issues.
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