Canadian Lawyer InHouse

BEING TRAINED IN CRISIS MANAGEMENT IS CRITICAL, AND IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT RAISING YOUR HAND AND SAYING, 'BY VIRTUE OF THE FACT I'M A LAWYER, I CAN MANAGE CRISIS MANAGEMENT.' I DON'T THINK THAT WORKS. AV MAHARAJ, KELLOGG CO. understanding the risk tolerance of the organization, but also having a deep under- standing of your business is really required because if you don't understand your busi- ness, how can you give that advice in a meaningful way? The other thing is risk mitigation. I was in China at one point and the president of international turned to me and said, 'Are you in the risk-elimination business or the risk-mitigation business?' I responded by saying, 'There' thing as risk elimination.' If you under- stand the business, understand that we are trying to mitigate risk as much as possible, I think that gets you into a good place. s no such CLARK: As a general counsel you need to understand very deeply and intimately the vision and the strategy of your orga- nization. then you build on that and be part of the senior management team, as well and you understand the challenges and the various initiatives that all your senior colleagues in the organizations are going through. I think that helps you under- stand the business, how the vision is being operationalized, and you can offer so much more practical guidance look- ing at legal risk, but risk in general, I think. I would say the biggest risk that we have to manage as an organization is the reputational risk, and it is absolutely the most important risk and a lot of our risk-management activities are devel- oped around media, social media, media in general, relationships with regulators, policy-makers. The biggest risk that we need to manage as an association is how For me, that's the starting point and the world perceives the Canadian banks. INHOUSE: Nathalie, you mentioned social media. How much damage can social media cause? CLARK: Social media is definitely some- thing we monitor on a constant basis. We discover very often in social media that some reports or papers are going to come out in a few days that are very damaging for the industry. A good example of that is a report that came out about bank bailouts in Canada. Through social media we identified this risk three days before the report came out. Social media is something that you absolutely need to monitor when you are a trade association. We were able to respond in a much better way to all media inquiries that we received. ... to help you navigate legal obstacles, outside your window and around the world... Your lawyer. Your law firm. Your business advisor. BennettJones-2_IH_Aug_12.indd 1 INHOUSE WWW.CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012 • 12-06-28 10:54 AM 23

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