John Pearce of Fonterra focuses on changing risks

David Matthews, left, general counsel, and John Pearce, general manager, policy and risk, at Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd. / BRUCE JARVIS

Risks are not static. In fact, they change regularly.

As a result, Auckland, New Zealand-based Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd. requires each of its key business units to do an annual risk assessment, according to John Pearce, general manager, policy and risk.

“This comprises just over 50 separate businesses, some of which are really quite sizeable,” he said.

Each unit is required to identify its top 15 risks. That's rolled up to the strategic business unit level, Mr. Pearce said. “We do all the aggregating and collating of the information and present to the C-suite management level the top 20 risks, which are then presented to the board for review and ratification,” he said.

“The sorts of things that might be in our top risks might include major disaster, food quality and safety,” Mr. Pearce said. “Each of these top risks will have identified risk owners in the business whose job includes driving risk improvements and reporting on the status of the risks and their respective controls.”