How Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Extends the Front Lines to New Areas of Risk

In our Spotlight on Success series, Pooja Knight, AVP of ERM and Climate Change at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., shares how audit, risk, and compliance teams are leveraging AuditBoard’s connected risk platform to engage their global business owners to understand their top risks across regions. Gallagher is one of the world’s largest insurance brokerage, risk management, and consulting firms providing services in more than 130 countries. Hear how this Fortune 500 company is making an impact by connecting insights across the business to deliver a holistic view of risk, including:

• Leveraging AuditBoard’s SOXHUB, OpsAudit, and RiskOversight, solutions together to integrate the work of audit, risk, and compliance. 
• Activating business stakeholders across the Americas, EMEA, and ANZ to identify and understand the top risks in each region.
• Taking a connected risk approach to break down silos and work together to forecast and prepare for new and emerging risks. 

Tell us a little about Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. and how you view the critical role audit, risk, and compliance plays at Gallagher.

“Arthur J. Gallagher is an insurance brokerage company. Although we’re public, there’s very much a family feel to it. Really, we’re about serving our clients — ensuring that from a risk management perspective we’re doing the right thing and that we can help our clients grow at the same time.”

“My vision for audit, risk, and compliance is to make sure that not only are we integrated, but we’re also forward-thinking. No one knew that we’d ever be living through a pandemic for the last almost two and a half years now. Rules are always going to change. Regulations are going to change. We’re a heavy acquisition growth company, we’re going to have a lot of integration with new systems and so forth. For me, it’s ensuring that my team has the resources and the automation to get the work done.”

Risk is constantly evolving — how are you extending the front lines across more areas of risk globally?

“One of the things that’s super important to us is to make sure that we’re extending all of our risks against the critical lines of our business. We’re in three major regions: the Americas, EMEA, and also ANZ. I have folks that help me in those regions to see what the risks are, help me understand how we can mitigate those risks, and understand what’s most important to those regions. What I might see as a top risk here might be slightly different than what’s actually “boots on the ground” happening in EMEA or in ANZ. So it’s very important that we look at it from a critical risk standpoint, and that we have that integration across the board.”

How are you leveraging AuditBoard’s connected risk platform to elevate your team’s impact?

“It’s important for us to do more with less. For us to get the same amount of work — if not more — done given what we’re being asked, we need to have the tools at hand. We need to have automation to be able to do that type of work. One thing that AuditBoard has really done for us is listened. They listen to their customers and they evolve their tools to make sure that it adapts to the customer’s needs at the end of the day.”

How has taking a connected risk approach empowered you to integrate cross-organizational insights to gain an enterprise view of risk?

Things are going to hit you. It’s not so much about being protected, but anticipating those risks. I think a connected risk approach is going to make us smarter — forecasting together what’s going to hit Gallagher, and making sure that we’re prepared for those risks. You’ve got audit functions that are going to come in look at it, make sure that we’re prepared, we have the right controls, and are reducing those risks in the right way. As a team, we’ll be prepared because the most important thing is that you break down the silos and you work together.”