AIRMIC SETS UP COMPANY TO PROMOTE RISK MANAGEMENT LEARNING
AIRMIC has set up a company to promote understanding of risk management in the wider business community in a move that means Executive Director David Gamble will be stepping down from the position he has held since 1998.
Gamble will lead the new enterprise, provisionally known as Risk Publishing Online, once all the arrangements are finalised. AIRMIC will be advertising shortly for another Executive Director. The changes are expected to take place in the summer after the association’s annual conference.
The new company will build on PRORIM, the e-learning risk management course for smaller and medium-sized businesses pioneered by AIRMIC and sponsored by the European Union’s Leonardo de Vinci project. As well as developing PRORIM within the EU, the aim is to market it elsewhere. Talks have already begun with associations and potential customers in a range of locations, including Russia, India and South Africa.
It is hoped that in future the other original PRORIM Partners, including FERMA
(the Federation of European Risk Management Associations) and the IRM (Institute of Risk Management) will make use of the systems and courses as they are developed. There are also plans to develop new training products, including one based around the Insurance Buyer’s Guide, published recently by AIRMIC for commercial buyers.
“By next summer I will have been at AIRMIC for nearly ten years, which is a long time in one job, and I am very excited by this new challenge,” said Gamble. “The feedback from PRORIM has been very positive, and we want to give it the push it deserves as part of a wider ambition to promote the risk management values that we represent.
“The role of executive director has been, and continues to be, a very engaging and rewarding one. I have been very fortunate in the Chairmen who I have worked for and in the friendship and assistance I have received from members and those in the wider market. Whoever takes over can look forward to a job that never stands still and is always interesting.”
AIRMIC chairman Geoff Taylor said the establishment of a company to promote PRORIM was a landmark development for the association. “Under David Gamble’s leadership AIRMIC is more active, more influential and broader in scope than it has ever been, and I am pleased that we will be retaining his knowledge and expertise.
“His new position shows how seriously we take our role as a leading promoter of risk management in its full sense. The association’s core job remains the same: to represent and give support to risk managers. But we have always recognised that we have a wider responsibility to promote a risk management culture. With these changes, it will be easier for us to take our message to new audiences.”
Notes to editors:
About AIRMIC: Based in the UK, AIRMIC (the Association of Insurance and Risk Managers) represents risk managers. Its members include 75% of FTSE 100 companies. They spend in aggregate more than £5 billion p.a. on insurance and risk management products.
About PRORIM: PRORIM is a collaboration between FERMA, AIRMIC, the Institute of Risk Management, University of Verona, Musthaveknowledge and the risk management associations of France, Germany and Italy and supported by the EU’s Leonardo Fund. Its aim is to spread risk management expertise through an e-learning training course. Started in 2005, it has now gone live.
About David Gamble: David became Executive Director of AIRMIC in January 1998 after a successful business career, most of which was spent in Japan. A fuller description follows.
David Gamble to switch jobs in summer
David Gamble will have been Executive Director for nearly ten years when he changes roles, probably after the association’s conference in June. By then his successor should have been announced, enabling an orderly and hopefully seamless transfer of responsibility.
When Gamble was interviewed by AIRMIC for the position all those years ago he cheerfully admitted that he had no formal knowledge of risk management and only a layman’s understanding of the insurance industry. He has, however, become a prominent market figure.
Although he is the first to acknowledge that successive chairmen and other senior members have been pivotal in AIRMIC’s development, Gamble has been the common thread in what has been a period of considerable achievement. Obtaining terrorism cover for airlines post-9/11, changes to the Pool Re scheme, keeping risk managers out of the regulatory clutches of the Treasury and promoting greater transparency in the insurance-buying process have been among the successes.
The partnership scheme, launched in 2005, has added to the depth and range of AIRMIC’s services and significantly increased the level of participation in the association.
Gamble also developed the PRORIM e-learning course, and these changes will enable him to devote himself to this project. The enterprise needs the full-time attention of an experienced individual if it is to fulfil its potential.
Before joining AIRMIC Gamble held a number of chief executive or director-level positions. These included: Managing Director, TTB Hickeys and Paperback Binders, then the largest Print finishing group in the UK; President, English China Clay, Japan; and General Manager Spirax-Sarco, Japan.
He is a Japanese speaker and has a Japanese wife.