Now that the financial crisis has put risk management on the front burner for most companies, we're starting to see much more attention on it across government at all levels. And, regulatory bodies are likely to follow suit once a little of the dust settles.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently announced that he was going to assign a "Risk Watchdog" across different areas of financial markets (banks, hedge funds, derivatives, etc). The problem that such a person would attempt to address would be the complexity and interdependency of financial risk, to avoid the systemic risk that we saw during the current crisis. The ultimate goal, of course, would be new and more sweeping regulations that would help to prevent similar financial meltdowns in the future.
There can be, and certainly will be, spirited debates about the amount and types of regulatory changes that are required to avoid future crises like this one. But, I personally think it's a positive step that a more holistic view of risk is being undertaken. Better late than never"¦