“Working in risk in Asia is so exciting. So why don’t more people want to do my job?”

I’ve worked in risk management roles in the Hong Kong banking sector for more than 12 years, first in operational risk and now in a more all-encompassing senior job. Demand for risk management professionals has stayed consistently strong throughout this period, despite big ups and downs in the job market generally in banking.

But still (still!) the supply of risk people in Hong Kong isn’t enough to meet demand. And this is despite the fact that risk jobs are becoming more interesting and people (traders, for example) who have made career changes into risk have typically become very successful in the field.

I think the reason for the continual skill shortages are largely historical – perceptions of the risk management function haven’t moved with the times. People still think risk is, well, boring and bureaucratic.

To be a good risk manager has traditionally involved having difficult conversations with other people in the business, especially those in the front office. Generally speaking, people in Asia don’t like confrontation and that’s been a contributing factor to graduates being put off going into risk roles.

But while being confrontational is still occasionally required, the job has evolved for the better over the past two or three years. It’s become a more interesting role…but not enough people outside the profession (at least here in Hong Kong) actually realise this.

For most of my career, the banks I worked for used a yes/no rules-based approach to risk. In its most simple form, this meant that the risk team would tell other employees to log into a system and tick boxes to say, “I did this, I did that”. It didn’t always make us popular and it didn’t always make our jobs interesting.

By contrast, much of my current bank’s risk management policies are now principle-based, and this provides much more flexibility around our decision-making processes. Risk management is no longer about having tick-boxes and putting up roadblocks; it’s about how we drive the bank forward in a safe manner.

If it’s clear that the bank must achieve a particular outcome, my team looks at how we’re going to get there and what situations we might face along the way. We now partner with the rest of the business on important projects and act as advisors, not adversaries.

This has made working in risk much more exciting…and it’s about time more people cotton onto this and start considering careers in the profession.

Hector Tai (a pseudonym) is a senior risk manager at a bank in Hong Kong.

Image credit: georgeclerk, Getty