RIMS Awards The Risk Manager of the Year Honor to Children's National Medical Center's Rebecca Cady

 

Donald (Sandy) Aspinall, Jr., Vice President of Global Risk Management for Comcast Corporation; Jennifer Hills, Director of the Office of Risk Management Services for King County (Washington); and Joseph Meaney, Jr., Vice President of Global Insurance and Risk Engineering for AES Corporation were named to the 2018 RIMS Risk Management Honor Roll.

The Risk Manager of the Year program aims to raise the profile of the risk management profession and the outstanding programs the honorees have implemented within their organizations. The program was initiated in 1977 and the Risk Management Honor Roll was added in 1981. 

“Expectations of risk professionals vary from organization to organization,” said RIMS CEO Mary Roth. “Our Risk Manager of the Year and Risk Management Honor Roll winners have demonstrated their ability to identify organizational needs and capitalize on new opportunities. 

“Whether it is enhancing processes, reducing costs or strengthening communications, this year’s class has shown extraordinary skill, knowledge and ingenuity. They are a testament to the significance of this profession and RIMS congratulates them for their achievements.”

Any full-time professional who administers risk management programs for a corporation, nonprofit institution or government entity is eligible for submission in the Risk Manager of the Year program. The nominations are judged by an independent panel comprising prior honorees and other risk management and insurance industry leaders.  

 

 

Rebecca Cady is the Vice President and Chief Risk Officer at Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC), a freestanding pediatric academic medical center and health system based in Washington, D.C.

Rebecca is responsible for CNMC’s enterprise risk management department, management of their litigation program including serving as counsel to the Compliance Officer and Human Resources. Additionally, she oversees the operationalization of the organization’s clinical risk management program; insurance program including managing the organization’s captive insurance company; its ombudsman program, as well as the workers’ compensation program. 

With excess of 10,000 incident reports a year, Rebecca’s work to update antiquated event reporting software and revamping the litigation management function was critical to the Center’s sustainability. By establishing best in class processes for managing outside counsel, decision analysis and case settlements, she directly contributed to a net positive movement on reserves of over $100M in the last five years. Additionally, under her direction, expenses in the management of CNMC’s program – including attorneys’ fees – decreased by over 47% in the same period. 

Rebecca creatively and effectively uses and improves risk financing/insurance to structure a risk financing and risk transfer program that serves the needs of the organization and supports its ERM initiative. She led the elimination of a redundant captive used for excess coverage, restructured program retentions in using the captive and a trust, strengthened claim reserving practices, and established a funding methodology to eliminate a $30M shortfall in reserves. 

Over the past nine years, Rebecca has established and implemented innovative programs and approaches to risk management and risk financing for CNMC that have been used as templates for the organization’s compliance program model. 

At CNMC, Rebecca previously served as interim Executive Director of a subsidiary patient safety organization and as interim VP, Chief Compliance and Privacy Officer. Prior to joining the Center, she was a Partner at Grace Hollis Lowe Hanson & Schaeffer, LLP.

Donald (Sandy) Aspinall, Jr. has enjoyed a nearly 30-year career in insurance brokerage and risk management.

In his current role as Vice President of Global Risk Management for Comcast Corporation, Sandy leads risk management, claims management and risk assessment strategy and implementation for Comcast businesses worldwide. Through strategic initiatives and thoughtful planning, he integrated the people, processes and programs on an improvement continuum to develop a more cohesive and effective risk management approach.

Sandy selects and provides management oversight and directs the activities of the various service providers, brokers, and insurers to assist the company in efficiently financing and managing risk. He oversees a claims management team that provides oversight, advocacy, and management of more than 16,000 claims per year and a rolling portfolio of approximately $400M of outstanding liability financed via retained risk and captive insurer reserves. 

In addition to acting as president of Comcast's two single parent captives and serving as a member of the company's Enterprise Risk Management Steering Committee and Risk Leadership Team, Sandy has transformed the corporation’s global risk management function. In just four years, he guided the organizations global risk management activities, allowing it to realize nearly $114M in savings.

A true champion of enterprise-wide risk management, in his first four months, Sandy conducted 62 one-on-one discussions with leaders from diverse business practices and geographies. The meetings allowed him to successfully share the Global Risk Management team’s philosophy and better understand business leaders’ priorities. This laid the groundwork for continuing, highly communicative relationships and effective risk monitoring.

Prior to Comcast Corporation, Sandy was the Managing Director, Strategic Account Management at Aon Risk Solutions. In addition to delivering significant value to the organization in this capacity, he served as a mentor to dozens of junior employees, promoting their interests, sharing his perspective and considerable technical knowledge. 

Jennifer Hills is the Director of Risk Management for King County, Washington. King County, the 13th largest county in the United States, includes the Seattle-Bellevue metropolitan area and serves over 2 million people.

Jennifer and her staff of 31 are responsible for all aspects of managing, transferring, and financing risks that flow from the County’s operations. This includes its 14,000 employees, law enforcement, correctional facilities, public health and community services, wastewater treatment, legal system, as well as the 140 million annual trips taken on board its regional bus, light rail, street car, and passenger ferry services, as well as the operations of its international airport.

Her team has aligned ERM with the mission and vision of King County, transforming its risk culture from “risk averse” to “risk optimized.” This culture shift is gaining momentum throughout County operations as strategic risks are taken to increase enterprise value. She has successfully motivated her team who give their best each day and contribute to the organization’s success, facilitating an increase in the employee engagement score for the Office of Risk Management Services from 66% in 2015 to 85% in 2017.  

As a result of these ERM efforts, King County has a Priority Risk Register which addresses its top 30 risks and identifies their likelihood and impact, risk owners and action plans. With buy-in from senior leaders, Jennifer’s team hosts quarterly ERM Working Group meetings that are attended by representatives from King County’s largest agencies. Subsequently, losses have developed more favorably than predicted, and the Risk Management group was able to rebate $20M from an undesignated fund balance to County departments in the 2017-2018 biennial budget.

Additionally, Jennifer has helped develop a more mature process for analyzing significant losses, shortening the time from claim filing to settlement from an average of 3.5 years to 1.5 years. This reduction has dropped significantly lower than the industry average (3.3 years) and continues to save time and money for both claimants and King County. 

Jennifer joined King County in 1999 and holds the ARM-P and CRM designations.

As Vice President of Global Insurance and Risk Engineering for AES Corporation, Joseph Meaney is responsible for establishing and directing the global insurance and risk management practice, including the identification, management and efficient financing of construction, operational, and business risks. In addition, he oversees all global risk engineering activities and is an advisor to the senior leadership team on risk issues.  

Under Joe’s leadership, AES’s Risk Engineering Program is now recognized as a world-leading self-directed engineering program. The program extends to all operational power plants and power plants under construction including several involving complex civil engineering challenges and single project investments in excess of $1 billion. Since the program’s inception, there have been more than 2,200 site visits, over 10,900 risk improvement opportunities identified, and AES’s potential for loss has been reduced by over $30.4 billion.

Joe focuses on advancing communication across AES’s global operations. This requires oversight of AES presence in 16 countries on four continents and features a diverse workforce, cultural differences, multiple languages, different accounting practices, a range of power generation equipment and technology issues. By level-setting risk quantification and more efficiently tracking risk trends, Joe has developed a process that delivers emerging risk information to leadership. In addition to gaining trust from leadership, his guidance has promoted a culture of risk-informed decision making regarding a wide range of strategic initiatives from new project development, plant repowering, mergers and acquisitions and emerging technologies. 

Additionally, Joe has successfully enhanced AES’s captive (AGIC), allowing for it to become a sophisticated risk financing tool delivering unique solutions that enable AES to effectively compete in its marketplaces. In turn, AGIC has become a revenue generator, providing material annual corporate contributions over the last five years to the parent company.