WHEELING, Ill. — Effective risk management shares common characteristics regardless of the size or type of organization, according to two experts who spoke Wednesday at the REBEX 2013 Regional Risk Management Conference and Exhibition.

“There are some characteristics that seem to cross boundaries of industries, sizes of companies, public and private that all seem to come together as best practices,” said Danita C. Cole Medved, executive vice president and global client advocate, Willis Risk Solutions at Willis of Wisconsin Inc. in Brookfield, Wis.

Ms. Medved and Raymond J. Van Eperen, vice president, global risk management, at Kimberly-Clark Corp. in Neenah, Wis., discussed those characteristics in a program examining the “7 Habits of a Highly Effective Risk Manager.”

Those characteristics included senior management support, proactively protecting assets, embedding enterprise risk management into strategic business planning, engaging in value-added collaboration, demonstrating analytical and organizational skills, continuous improvement, and an appropriate attitude toward risk.

In order to proactively protect assets, “You have to know numbers,” said Mr. Van Eperen. Dashboards and scorecards can be effective tools to help track risks, he said, adding that Kimberly-Clark grades facilities on risks. “We've got a whole scorecard,” he said.

Regarding the importance of ERM, the Kimberly-Clark risk manager said, “If you're wearing a property/casualty hat … you have to understand enterprise risk management.”

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Of value-added collaboration, Mr. Van Eperen said that while collaboration itself can be easy, “The hard part is value-added collaboration.” He encouraged other risk managers to collaborate with internal and external customers and said, “Never go before your senior leaders with nothing to tell them. Add value to them.”

Ms. Medved said analytical and organizational skills are particularly important in dealing with insurance markets. “You're always selling your company,” she said. “You do it by having great analytical and organizational skills.”

And Mr. Van Eperen added that it's important that risk managers know their organizations' histories. “Become a historian of your company,” he said. “Know where the bodies are buried because you're going to be asked those questions and you need to respond.”

Risk managers need to continuously look to improve their operations, Mr. Van Eperen said. Conducting mock crisis exercises is one important way of achieving such improvement, he said.

In terms of risk managers' attitudes, it's essential that a risk manager be passionate about the job, Mr. Van Eperen said. “Passion will get you results,” he said. A risk manager also needs to be able to consider both the upside and downside of risk and avoid being the “no person,” instead being seen as the “strategic person.”

The annual REBEX conference was held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Westin Chicago North Shore Hotel in Wheeling, Ill. The event is organized by the Chicago and Wisconsin chapters of the Risk & Insurance Management Society Inc.