Hot Topics: The Best Risk Manager Who Ever Lived (What a Croc)

The best risk manager in the entire animal kingdom isn’t Advocate Health Care’s Scott H. Beckman, recently anointed as the risk manager of the year by one industry publication.

Nor is it former Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc. president Lance Ewing, vice president of risk management for Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. Neither is it RIMS president Janice Ochenkowski, managing director at Chicago real estate and investment powerhouse Jones Lang, LaSalle.

In fact, the best risk manager who ever lived isn’t a member of RIMS, or the Federation of European Risk Management Associations, or any risk management organization at all – never has been and never will be.

This über-risk manager shuns the stoplight, and you won’t find this superstar sitting at RIMS video booths holding court on enterprise risk management. The world’s best risk manager scoffs at lifetime achievement awards, keynote addresses and Powerpoint presentations. In fact, the world’s No. 1 risk manager’s never even been to school, can't even read.

That’s because the best risk manager who ever lived is an ugly beast that goes by the name Crocodylus Niloticus, otherwise known as the Nile crocodile, according to South African author and naturalist Gert Cruyagen, the keynote speaker on the closing day of the annual RIMS convention.

Crocodylus Niloticus is the complete risk management package, in the eyes of Cruyagen. He, or she, has camouflage, speed and agility, knows how to fight back, works well with others, is armed to the teeth in thick, tough body armor, overwhelms adversaries, knows when to retreat to safe havens, and sits at the top of the food chain with no predator to worry about.

Crocodylus, who was around during the time of dinosaurs, can weigh more than a ton. They can live to more than 100 years old.

Now what risk manager wouldn’t want Crocodylus as a mentor? Forget bestowing risk manager of the year titles to the industry's usual suspects. Crocodylus Niloticus deserves to be the only risk manager of the year, every year, forever.