Risk Management: A Look Back and a Look Forward

On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the tragic deaths of its crew members. Since then, the paradigm of risk management shifted from reactive to proactive. Taxonomies, frameworks, methodologies and tools have evolved over time to meet this need to manage risk proactively. While we are more confident today, we still face the realization that we are not truly able to answer an imperative proactive question, “Will we be riskier tomorrow than we are today?”

In this issue of The Bulletin, we will look back 25 years on how risk management has evolved and some of the lessons we can draw from the past.