In this inaugural episode of Riskology by Infortal, hosts Chris Mason, Candice Tal and Dr. Ian Oxnevad discuss their approach to the podcast, and share a glimpse into the diverse range of topics they will be delving into. Riskology blends business, geopolitics, and intelligence to demystify the 21st century economic world and explore how geopolitical risk directly impacts your bottom line.
Infortal Worldwide is a global risk management and investigations firm that specializes in helping businesses navigate complex risk landscapes. The company’s focus extends to various areas, including economics, politics, and geopolitical risk. By delving into these interconnected realms, Infortal Worldwide aims to provide clients with comprehensive insights that empower them to make informed decisions, especially in critical areas such as mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments, and other strategic moves.
You’ll hear Candice, Chris and Ian discuss:
- Infortal Worldwide is a global risk management and investigations firm with a strong 38-year track record. The firm operates in 160 countries around the world, serving a diverse range of industry sectors, with a primary focus on large companies, upper-middle-market entities, and large-cap corporations.
- In addition to geopolitical risk, Infortal specializes in providing solutions to real-world problems faced by clients. Their expertise encompasses issues such as sanctions risk, potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), identifying bad actors, and addressing reputational damage that can expose companies to significant risks.
- Infortal helps companies mitigate global risk exposures, such as financial losses, reputational damage, and legal liability. They provide a comprehensive risk management solution with tools and services to identify, assess, and manage risks.
- The risk environment encompasses micro risks at the individual and business level, as well as macro risks at the country and regional level. The focus is on understanding immediate risk exposure from individuals and businesses, up to broader country-level and regional risks.
- Infortal recognized the significant challenges that companies face when engaging with international partners, suppliers, and stakeholders. The company aims to address the gap in discussions around geopolitical risk and provide education on the multifaceted challenges that businesses face today.
- Larger companies often face challenges in disseminating key information about geopolitical risks effectively. Information tends to become siloed within risk teams, making it difficult for decision-makers to access and act upon relevant intelligence. To unlock the power of geopolitical risk analysis, it is necessary to break down information silos and ensure that critical insights reach key decision-makers.
- Geopolitical risk analysis is more than just identifying potential problems and challenges. When information flows effectively within an organization, companies can use geopolitical risk analysis to uncover opportunities. This proactive approach allows organizations to strategically navigate the business landscape, positioning themselves advantageously against competitors in the event of unforeseen challenges.
- The current geopolitical risk landscape indicates a change in the dynamics of globalization. While globalization is a real and ongoing phenomenon, the traditional framework and relationships that defined it in the past have been significantly disrupted. Key geopolitical players, such as Russia, China, India, and the European Union, are reshaping the global economic landscape, and this transformation presents both challenges and opportunities.
- While globalization is currently facing challenges and uncertainties, it is also a critical juncture with many opportunities. Strategic countries such as India and Turkey, as well as those straddling various global dynamics, will play a pivotal role in shaping the future. The US, with its strong fundamentals and economic influence, remains a major player in determining the course of global developments.
KEY QUOTES
“The area that we specialize in, in addition to geopolitical risk, is finding solutions to real world problems that our clients face. And that could be anything from sanctions risk, to potential FCPA violations, to finding bad actors [and] con artists, to businesses that are operating with reputational damage and create exposures for the companies that they work with.” – Candice Tal
“And that’s the issue or the challenge of key information getting siloed within organizations. … It’s sometimes hard for all of the right information to come from the risk teams and end up in the right circles within the organization so that the key decision makers can actually act on the information and the intelligence that’s there. In the case of geopolitical risk, what we’re finding is that information is not making its way to the right individuals within the organizations.” – Chris Mason
“If you look at the geopolitical risk landscape today, it can be really summed up as: globalization ain’t what it used to be. And what that really means is that if there’s geopolitical stability and stability within major countries, then the global economy is going to work very well. But because of a number of issues that have happened over the past few years, some of it relates to COVID, some of it relates to just the fact that it’s not a unipolar system anymore. But what that means is that this is not the Cold War, this is not the post Cold War era in which we had peace and prosperity and the spreading of liberal democracy. If you sum all that up, we’re actually going in reverse.” – Ian Oxnevad
Resources
Candice Tal on LinkedIn | Twitter
Ian Oxnevad on LinkedIn
Chris Mason on LinkedIn
