The culture at technology startups like Uber, Airbnb and PayPal is all about risk-taking. They start by offering a unique, untested or reimagined product or service or by disrupting an industry’s established production, distribution or sales methods.
To succeed long-term, they must be smart enough to know what risks they are likely to encounter and which ones to take, which ones to mitigate and which ones to avoid. That’s, of course, where risk managers come in— helping firms, whether in technology or other fields, understand their risks.
“It’s interesting because risk is part of the language in technology firms. It’s positive. You want to take more risks but you want to take the right risks,” Laura Langone told Insurance Journal in a recent interview upon assuming the presidency of the global association for risk managers, the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS).
“I think as risk managers you have an opportunity to have a seat at the table for that conversation, which is always exciting to me.”
Langone knows her way around technology start-ups. She is currently head of Insurance Operations at the home-sharing and short-term…
