The Partnership of the Year Award looks to recognise partnerships whose work has set new standards in the field of risk management and has brought about tangible benefits.
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) and Oxford Brookes University’s School of Hospitality Management (OSHM) were the winners of the Partnership of the Year Award in the Institute of Risk Management’s (IRM) Global Risk Awards 2013.
In a glamorous Oscars-style event hosted by trend-spotter and futurologist Magnus Lindkvist at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London, the Global Risk Awards recognised and celebrated the world’s best risk management talent.
Leading risk management figures from 16 countries across five continents judged the final shortlist. Nominations were received from across the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
The Partnership of the Year Award looks to recognise partnerships whose work has set new standards in the field of risk management and has brought about tangible benefits. The other award contestants were the Crossrail project, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Group of Experts on Risk Management in Regulatory Systems, the MITIE Group – QBE partnership and the Parsons Brinkerhoff – SeRoN project.
IRM chief executive Steve Fowler said: “As the leading international educational institute in the field of risk management, IRM is uniquely placed to identify and reward outstanding performance. Our judges were astounded by the quality and range of entries received.”
The IHG-Oxford Brookes relationship started in 2006 with IHG’s John Ludlow’s participation in a study conducted by OSHM’s Dr Alexandros Paraskevas on crisis management and business continuity. It evolved over time, from student access to IHG’s risk executives and resources for their dissertations to active involvement of IHG’s risk team in the design and delivery of risk-management-related curriculum at OSHM. The next level of partnership included OSHM’s involvement in IHG’s risk function with four ‘knowledge exchange’ projects (two of which were Knowledge Transfer Partnerships – KTPs – co-funded by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board and Economic and Social Research Council) in the areas of business continuity, risk management performance monitoring, operational risk management and risk training. The outcomes of these projects set new standards in IHG’s risk management practice but were also shared with the wider industry through joint presentations in international industry/academia conferences.
Receiving the Award, John Ludlow, IHG’s Senior Vice President and Head of Global Risk Management said: “Our partnership with Oxford Brookes has always been about what each of us could give to the other institution, each gift of knowledge reciprocated time and time again. It soon became clear to both of us that, on the one hand, the industry needs academia to enhance its understanding of the business environment, to spark innovation and to develop tomorrow’s business leaders. And on the other, academia needs business to make its work relevant, fresh and engaging to students who want to join our industry. I am very grateful to Alex not only for contributing to our risk management discipline at IHG but more so for the wonderful team of young talent that he has helped inspire and coach.”
Dr Alexandros Paraskevas, Senior Lecturer in Strategic Risk Management at Oxford Brookes, added: “This Global Risk Award is the result of 7 years of collaboration between IHG’s incredible Risk Team around the world and an amazing bunch of young, bright researchers who are being developed to become the new generation of risk management leaders. Such collaborations require visionary leadership and strong work ethic, two attributes which are often scarce in the industry but abundant in John and his entire team.” And commenting on the partnership, he said: “Whether in the lecture theatre opening the minds of future managers to risk management thinking, in the office trying to develop innovative and more effective ways to manage risk or in the field addressing everyday risks and managing actual crises, this partnership has always been a unique privilege for all of us and should become the model for industry-academia collaboration.”
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