As staff director of risk management for one of the world's largest global delivery companies, Chad C. Jackson drives a risk management vision that protects the people, assets and brand of FedEx Corp. and its operating companies.

Responsible for the planning, organization, design, control and coordination of the global property/casualty risk management program of Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx, Mr. Jackson's oversight spans eight operating units, each with its own risk management department, and a total of 86 staff members.

A high school Spanish teacher prior to entering insurance risk management, Mr. Jackson joined FedEx in 2008 from Marsh Inc., where he was a client executive assigned to the FedEx account.

Currently, Mr. Jackson spends most of his time on insurance, specializing in policy language, design and structure.

In his five years at FedEx, Mr. Jackson has optimized the company's insurance coverage. The efforts helped reduce the total cost of risk by $30 million in the past three years as a result of program design changes and higher retentions.

Making risk management and insurance decisions based on data and analytics, Mr. Jackson focuses on retention levels to streamline coverage of FedEx's operating companies and has renewed its focus on loss control initiatives.

John D. Hartney, staff vice president and assistant treasurer at FedEx, was looking to restructure insurance purchasing and risk management into a more disciplined framework across the organization when he hired Mr. Jackson.

“We were on this process of renewal, renewal, renewal, and there wasn't as much strategic thinking or analysis,” said Mr. Hartney, who handles corporate finance, risk management and insurance, and retirement investments for FedEx.

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“What he brought was the background of knowledge of the brokerage side and the design and placement of our policies,” Mr. Hartney said. “He had good knowledge of what FedEx wanted to do within the products that he was familiar with.”

With that experience, Mr. Jackson has identified opportunities to leverage the strength of FedEx's balance sheet to take on higher retentions in various insurance programs that ultimately reduced the cost of coverage, Mr. Hartney said.

“But he's also been able to communicate through the organization why we need to do that and why that's effective,” Mr. Hartney said. “Each operating unit may have unique needs, but as an enterprise, we have the ability to absorb more risks than maybe a smaller operating unit might normally want to.”

This successful management of FedEx's risk portfolio earned Mr. Jackson a place on Business Insurance's Risk Management Honor Roll^® for 2013.

While FedEx's insurance programs may have been loosely structured prior to Mr. Jackson's arrival at the company, risk management and safety now is baked into all levels of the organization.

“Continuous improvement and crisis management are the lifeblood of the organization,” Mr. Hartney said. “That sense of embracing uncertainty exists in the organization, and that's turned into a process of quality-driven management where you're trying to use information to be more effective and to make good decisions that'll help drive improvement.”

The C-suite within FedEx is heavily involved and concerned with risk management, and FedEx Chairman and CEO Frederick W. Smith has given the charge of safety above all, Mr. Jackson said.

“That makes selling the risk to insurers very easy,” Mr. Jackson said.

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Risk management and safety is coordinated within FedEx, with property engineering departments, aviation safety groups and safety teams at each operating company, Mr. Jackson said.

During a risk event, affected units gather on a conference call and begin with the mantra, “We protect our people, we protect our assets and we protect our brand,” Mr. Jackson said.

“To me, that's the heart, soul and blood within the company,” he said.

The pervasiveness of risk management and safety within FedEx is essential to its insurance programs, Mr. Jackson said, noting that FedEx works with data and analytics, as well as its brokers and underwriters, to better understand exposures.

“We recognize at this point that when we get engineering recommendations, they're not just because we're protecting the insurer's balance sheet,” Mr. Jackson said. “We take significant retentions on properties as well. They protect our people, they protect our assets and they protect our brand.”

What drives Mr. Jackson daily is a vision he put in place five years ago that defines and addresses FedEx's corporate risk management function.

That vision focuses on strategic, long-term risk financing; analytics to support decisions; proactive identification of problems before they occur; solution-oriented knowledge to add value beyond insurance; and broad considerations to understand the operational, strategic, legal, financial and brand impacts of risk.

“Every meeting we go to ... that vision is right in front of us,” said Lori R. Badenhop, risk management adviser at FedEx. Ms. Badenhop is one of three members in FedEx's corporate risk management department, working with the insurance placements, data collection from the various operating companies and renewal strategies.

“He lives and breathes that. It's not just a statement made. It's very well-thought out and methodical as to what that vision is,” she said.