About MERC & CO

Providing leadership and management teams with useful risk insights that help them to make more informed decisions requires a deep and broad knowledge of both their business and the wider environment in which they operate, in addition to robust analytical skills and a pragmatic mindset. Galvanising senior stakeholder buy-in and support (vital to the success of all risk management programmes) requires productive, thought-provoking and value-adding engagement in order to build strong relationships and leave a positive perception of the Risk Function amongst the business. Both of these outcomes are best achieved via execution that is led and delivered day-to-day by a senior group of seasoned professionals. Our engagement teams consist only of Partner and Associate Partner level personnel, with all individuals bringing a minimum of 15 years’ relevant experience. This model offers our clients a uniquely high-calibre line-up, with unmatched technical knowledge alongside the commercial acumen, soft-skill-set and personal gravitas needed to meaningfully engage with C-suites, boards and senior governance bodies, as well as management and staff at operational levels. It is distinct from leveraged models that rely heavily on junior staff.

Understandably, organisations without fresh inputs and ideas can struggle to meaningfully innovate their risk programmes, engage stakeholders, revitalise reporting, or embed novel techniques to address new and emerging risks. Having worked for decades with many global organisations recognised as leaders in their industries, our Partners have extracted, synthesised and built upon practices developed with them to create core and vanguard risk systems that work in practice and deliver value. We use these diverse perspectives to continually challenge our delivery and designs so outputs are tailored to each client’s specific needs and are unrivalled in quality. We also regularly contribute our time and knowledge to help co-author recognised international standards and guides.

Having successfully delivered several hundred risk engagements with an expansive number of clients – as expert consultants and in-house Heads of Risk – our Partners understand that all organisations are different, with unique cultures, personalities and ways of working. We therefore tailor approaches to fit each organisation while anchoring designs to recognised good practice. The result is pragmatic, implementable solutions that work with the grain of the business and deliver outcomes.

Our clients receive tailored risk frameworks, including all necessary component parts which act as the building blocks for a successful risk programme (e.g. policies, manuals, training materials, annotated risk registers, executive / board / committee reporting templates etc.) and which are based on recognised technical standards and our extensive practical experience. This is complemented with implementation and roll-out support as necessary and, where there is appetite or desire, a clear maturity and capability development roadmap which captures future enhancement opportunities. The frameworks MERC & CO design for our clients are built not only with current challenges and needs in mind, but also to ensure that risk reporting will remain dynamic and interesting for stakeholder audiences, and that future requirements, such as having to routinely identify new or emerging risks or to align with evolving regulatory obligations, are fully addressed.

We frequently perform in-depth risk assessments at all levels and in all areas of our clients’ organisations. This ranges from ‘top-down’ strategic risk assessments with boards and executive committees, primarily to identify and manage the organisation’s most significant ‘Principal risks’, to ‘bottom-up’ risk exercises with Business Unit / Functional management teams focused on relevant exposures in their specific parts of the organisation. Additionally, we also routinely facilitate cross-departmental risk assessments in certain specialised areas or risk categories such as Compliance, Third Parties & Supply Chain and Financial Reporting, as well as more advanced analytics focused on, for example, risk distribution curves, emerging and existential scenarios, control quantification, aggregation and correlation effects etc. What these assessments have in common, regardless of scope, is a significant focus on root-cause analysis and precise risk characterisation, objective impact and likelihood assessment scoring to enable proper risk prioritisation and escalation to appropriate governance bodies, and the development of effective and (crucially) feasible risk response strategies.

The process to identify an organisation’s critical risks places risk professionals in a unique and privileged position; larger projects (such as a full enterprise risk management roll-outs) will typically involve engaging with hundreds of staff from across the organisation - very few other roles provide such a broad-level of stakeholder contact in a relatively short timeframe. These risk discovery conversations will, to the observant and experienced professional, provide a valuable snapshot of the business, uncovering upside and downside themes, trends and other useful information which may have otherwise remained hidden or overlooked. Surfacing this intelligence to leadership teams while acting as an independent and neutral observer or commentator can be extremely valuable, particularly when coupled with well-considered and practical recommendations to address and/or exploit the issues and opportunities identified. It is also worth noting that this can also sometimes include messaging that is difficult for internal staff to raise – we are not afraid to speak truth to management and so can play a 'devil's advocate' role.

The hallmarks of our client engagements include strengthened risk management frameworks and staff awareness and capabilities, with outputs that deliver better quality, trusted and more comprehensive risk intelligence for all management stakeholders. That is the technical outcome of a project and arguably the minimum a client should expect. What we also commonly hear as feedback from clients is that, to their surprise and perhaps differentiating for MERC & CO, our stakeholder engagement style is enjoyable, interesting and productive, which can be at odds with their previous risk management experience. Ensuring stakeholders have a positive experience with risk management is a fundamental success factor to sustained focus and engagement on the discipline by them, and helps establish the organisational perception of the Risk Function as one that is truly value adding.

We instil Risk Functions with a deep sense of conviction in their outputs by equipping them with the framework, tools and training / knowledge necessary to identify and help manage the organisation’s most critical risks effectively. This assuredness permeates throughout the Function and wider business, enhancing confidence in individual Risk team members when performing key activities, such as conducting strategic risk assessments with a senior group of stakeholders or when presenting risk outputs to a C-suite or board / committee-level audience. Our work also places our clients on a firmer footing when asked to articulate the inherent value that the risk programme delivers back to the business.

Our delivery goes beyond surface-level changes. We help to foster a deeper cultural shift within our clients’ organisations, away from daily fire-fighting and towards more proactive risk management. This shift leads to a more resilient organisation which is increasingly forward-looking and possessing of an anticipatory mindset, where risk considerations are routinely integrated into key aspects of business decision making (such as strategic planning and budgeting cycles) – not because they are forced to be, but because the business naturally recognises the benefits of doing so.

And finally, on a personal level, the individuals we work with directly day-to-day also benefit from the experience gained by MERC & CO’s Partners, having themselves acted as in-house Heads of Risk at some of the world’s leading organisations in their fields. We are always keen to share the lessons we have learned throughout our own journeys, and also what we have observed while actively supporting and nurturing many industry-leading risk professionals as their careers have developed. Our intention is that we will do whatever we can to help our client stakeholders excel, progress and achieve their own personal ambitions. We are also passionate about bringing new insights and perspectives, the latest goings-on in the industry, as well as independent counsel which can help our clients feel a sense of connection in what can be, at times, a somewhat isolated role.