The RIMS Strategic and Enterprise Risk Center presents: 2022 Melissa Reynard Director of ERM at the Internal Revenue Service
In November 2021, RIMS presented the Internal Revenue Service with the society’s 2021 ERM Global Award of Distinction. The IRS was honored for its progress in anticipating emerging risks, the steps it took to create a more risk-aware culture, and ultimately developing an ERM structure to enhance risk sharing and strategic decision-making.
The honor was well deserved, as so much needed to be accomplished and implemented against the backdrop of an extended government shutdown, sweeping tax reforms and significant operational disruptions within the IRS itself caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The government agency’s ERM program assisted its resilience amidst mounting uncertainties and vulnerabilities.
To learn more about the ERM program, we met with Melissa Reynard, director of ERM at the IRS, who was on site to receive the award at the RIMS ERM Conference 2021. Reynard has served in the position since January 2020, and previously was a senior risk advisor in the IRS Office of the Chief Risk Officer, a role she assumed in 2014.
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While the tools in the ERM playbook are helpful in gathering information on risk and then prioritizing risk, often a more fruitful examination of cross-functional risk may be accomplished through gaming, experimentation, or scenario-based planning. These techniques involve examining/walking through a given scenario (or set of scenarios) with pertinent organizational stakeholders, employing various methodologies to frame the problem and provide as much (or as little) structure, as needed. The scenario may be supported by technology (gaming tools, Google maps with data overlays, etc.) however the keys to success is having a facilitation team, skilled in expert elicitation, guiding the discussion, capturing the interchanges, then analyzing the results to assess and prioritize potential outputs to better inform risk management.
This session explored how risk management contributes to the ultimate goal of any organization: the delivery of maximum stakeholder value. Capturing the true value of ERM requires integration of results sought, resources allocated, and risks accepted and managed through a portfolio management process across the entire organization. Panelists shared their experiences, including challenges and end results.
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