I completed the London Marathon in a time of 5 hours 19 minutes and 8 seconds.

I was placed 29,167 finishing behind many rhinos, some ninety year olds and a mass of very brave human beings.

A few reflections at the end of this life changing experience:-

• The encouragement and positivity displayed on the course was staggering – imagine how life could be different if a modicum of these characteristics were on display every day;

 

• The generosity of Stop Press readers and my network of friends and family was amazing;

 

•   The power of sport to provide life messages was very clear;

 

• We should be proud of London, my city, and its ability to organize a truly special event.

I have taken the liberty of inviting you all at no extra charge to Risk Audit’s “Work-Life Balance Webinar this Thursday 26^th April at 1pmLondon time. You are obviously no obligation to attend but are also extremely welcome.

It is a chance for me to share some tips I have applied that have made my life much better, more focused and more satisfying. Please understand that I do not claim to have all the answers. Human beings, by their very nature, are highly imperfect. But we can get better at the business of living.

For those of you with colleagues who may wish to donate please click on my Great Ormond Street Charity page. To date, we have raised over £ 3,500 for this very worthy cause.

That is the question I am asking myself as I pound the streets of London at 5am ahead of a busy day.

My journey to date in life has been quite straight forward. Married with two kids and a labrador. Worked in the City of London for a number of banks. Tried to change the world but failed so settled for something less.

In the interim, my weight increased, my stress levels went up and life became more complicated.

Is this really any different from anybody else?

My moment of truth happened one afternoon in my GP’s surgery. The lovely Dr. Mansfield pointed out that I weighed 105 kg. (massive for somebody who is 5ft 5 inches in height). My blood pressure was 220 / 140 (Lewis Hamilton would be proud of the cornering speed of my blood cells). She showed me some interesting charts that statistically predicted that I had a one in five chance of having a stroke or terminal heart attack within the next five years.

Point made.

The last three years has seen me lose 25kg in weight. Recently put 5kg on but food will always represent a battle. My blood pressure is now a normal 130 / 80 (unless Chelsea does something silly). The tablets have been ditched.

All of sudden I am alive.

To prove this to myself I made a decision last Summer that I would attempt to run the London Marathon on April 22^nd 2012.

Easy decision. It has subsequently become clear that this is probably one of the most difficult thing I have ever chosen to do. The training to date has involved 86 training runs on 3 continents in temperatures ranging from -10 degrees to 30 degrees totalling 462 miles.

Just 74 miles plus 26.2 marathon miles to the finishing line.

Who am I doing all this for? To be honest me. But it would be a shame to waste this opportunity on just little old me. I am also doing this to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

If you would like to show your appreciation of the human spirit in a tangible way please donate by clicking on DONATE TO GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL

It’s that time of year again.  An opportunity to reflect on what has been another dramatic year. A chance to look backwards with a view to making the future feel better.

Now that is a challenge!

I am an optimist by nature but 2011 has challenged my beliefs to the core. As an entrepreneur facing his second recession in three years I am feeling a little sorry for myself. I am also feeling a degree of anger at the fact that I am blessed to live in a generation populated by some of the worst political leaders I have witnessed in my lifetime. The euro crisis was born out of banking greed. It is prolonged however by political incompetence of the highest nature.

In my world, frauds provide spectacular fodder. Not even UBS’s rogue trader loss could diminish the glorious failure to move the global economy forward.

All of this said I have managed to find some grounds for optimism in my activities during 2011. My inspiration for next year and beyond has come from my mentoring assignments and the privileged opportunity to work with a range of talented human beings working in the much criticized financial services sector.

The key lesson I would share with my readers is the absolute importance of focusing on what we can control – the little things in life. The little things are normally that next action, that next meeting, that next difficult conversation, that next piece of analytical thinking.

Working through this principle has allowed me to witness little ideas born out of two people sharing a creative process to solve problems.

My mentoring has brought me into contact with people suffering from deep hostility from the audit client, from staff at threat of losing their jobs or from the deep pessimism created by the current environment.

It has been empowering to witness how working on the next action with a positive attitude can overcome the most difficult of circumstances.

So in the finest tradition of my end of year message I am duty bound to look forward and share some lessons from my own experience with a view to making 2012 an opportunity.

Here goes:-

• Ignore bad news (the media believes that it needs to peddle such stories to sell itself);
• Read Stop Press (my daily newsletter) – I promise that will carry at least one good news story a day;
• Take one risk a day (obviously after having identified the downside and constructed a mitigating strategy);
• Talk to new people – set yourself a target of one day;
• And finally, believe in the human spirit – it makes the world go around – has done from day one and will do into the far future.

It’s that time of year again.  An opportunity to reflect on what has been another dramatic year. A chance to look backwards with a view to making the future feel better.

Now that is a challenge!

I am an optimist by nature but 2011 has challenged my beliefs to the core. As an entrepreneur facing his second recession in three years I am feeling a little sorry for myself. I am also feeling a degree of anger at the fact that I am blessed to live in a generation populated by some of the worst political leaders I have witnessed in my lifetime. The euro crisis was born out of banking greed. It is prolonged however by political incompetence of the highest nature.

In my world, frauds provide spectacular fodder. Not even UBS’s rogue trader loss could diminish the glorious failure to move the global economy forward.

All of this said I have managed to find some grounds for optimism in my activities during 2011. My inspiration for next year and beyond has come from my mentoring assignments and the privileged opportunity to work with a range of talented human beings working in the much criticized financial services sector.

The key lesson I would share with my readers is the absolute importance of focusing on what we can control – the little things in life. The little things are normally that next action, that next meeting, that next difficult conversation, that next piece of analytical thinking.

Working through this principle has allowed me to witness little ideas born out of two people sharing a creative process to solve problems.

My mentoring has brought me into contact with people suffering from deep hostility from the audit client, from staff at threat of losing their jobs or from the deep pessimism created by the current environment.

  It has been empowering to witness how working on the next action with a positive attitude can overcome the most difficult of circumstances.

So in the finest tradition of my end of year message I am duty bound to look forward and share some lessons from my own experience with a view to making 2012 an opportunity.

Here goes:-

• Ignore bad news (the media believes that it needs to peddle such stories to sell itself);
• Read Stop Press (my daily newsletter) – I promise that will carry at least one good news story a day;
• Take one risk a day (obviously after having identified the downside and constructed a mitigating strategy);
• Talk to new people – set yourself a target of one day;
• And finally, believe in the human spirit – it makes the world go around – has done from day one and will do into the far future.

 

My London Marathon campaign is up and running.

Firstly a confession. I applied for my marathon place from a sense of complete selfishness. I wanted to beat the battle of the bulge (still 8 kgs to go) and crossing the line at Buckingham Palace would be that final victory. But now that I have been accepted for the race I turn my attention to grander ideals.

The ideal I am focused on is raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital. Some of us have had our children in the hospital. Some of us will have our children in the hospital. As I become a “grumpy old man” I realise each day that we live in a very imperfect world. In the perfect world, a superb hospital such as GOSH would be perfectly funded. But this is not reality.

 I ask those of you who can afford to donate something to donate (you know who you are). To those of you who cannot afford to donate, your best wishes and encouragement are gratefully received. I will do the rest.

I will get up and run those hundreds of training miles on cold wintry foggy mornings.

Please donate

How advanced are your EFP projects? 

By this I mean the Euro Fragmentation Project! 

You may think that I am bordering on lunacy but I remain convinced that a number of countries will be forced to leave the euro system following yesterday’s fudged announcement. 

The Structural Case 

The euro is doomed to failure for the following reasons:- 

• There is no cohesive political structure that supports;
• Decision-making is fragmented;
• Transfers from surplus regions to deficit regions is too difficult;
• The German taxpayer will tire of subsidising profligate fellow Europeans.

Nicolas Sarkozy has more or less acknowledged the weakness of the system by expressing the view thatGreeceshould not have been allowed to join the system. On his logic, one wonders ifIrelands,Portugalor evenItalywould have qualified. 

The Short Term Case

I believe that a number of countries will be forced to leave the euro system for the following reasons:- 

• Yesterday’s announcement has too many loose ends:-

-The exact nature of the haircut;

-The Greek bail-out;

-The exact funding and operation of the EFSF.

• The markets will attack the structure again within one week (look at Italian bond yields).

 The Consequences for You

We had c. 3 years to prepare for the advent of the Euro which saw the light of day on 1^st January 1999. 

Financial institutions engaged in elaborate projects overseen by regulators. 

You have c. 6 months to prepare for EFP.

 Are you playing ostrich? 

Please send your comments to sandroboeri@riskaudit.co.uk

As the tenth anniversary of 9-11 approaches, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on the feelings caused by this tragic historic event and the relationship to similar feelings that affect us all ten years later.

I remember where I was and what I was doing ten years ago early one afternoon inLondon.

I was working in a recruitment capacity in Risk Audit’s early days in a splendid yet dated office by the Guildhall at the heart of the City. The first sign that not all was right with the world was being informed during a headhunt call to a prime candidate inNew York(you know who you are!)that he had just witnessed a plane flying into theWorldTradeCenter. At first I thought that he must have been using some exotic substance and was therefore unsuitable for the responsible position I had in mind for him. It rapidly became clear that I was very wrong and that in fact the world as we knew it was under attack.

The image of the twin towers collapsing, people jumping to certain death, the vibrant financial centre I knew very well and loved for its dynamism under siege will haunt me forever. These were images viewed in a silent Corney & Barrow just offColeman Streetwith my business partner, Mitchell.

I recall leaving the bar at 3.30pm. Rumours flew around the City that planes had been hijacked and were on their way to attack the village I loved, the City ofLondon. My sole desire was to get out of the way and be with my young children at home.

The stench of fear is a feeling, an emotion and a state of mind that will always haunt me.

I strongly believe that the mindset created by these terrorists has never truly disappeared.

That mindset causes me to fast forward to the times we live in today. Times of financial uncertainty and negativity if you live in theUnited Statesor “Old Europe”.

Are we going to allow the rhetoric of fear to contaminate the rest of our lives?

I am still learning what it means to be a human being. I am learning that life is a learning experience.

The key lesson I would like to share with Stop Press’ readers today is that as human beings we have choices.

The key choice I would like to reflect on today is whether or not we want to live the rest of lives in a climate of negativity and fear or whether we want to live in a climate of positivity and aspiration.

We are more likely to achieve our life aims if we choose the latter.

9-11 and today’s recessionary conditions cause me to focus on the impact that negative words have on our mindset. There are too many negative expressions around in our world. It is perhaps time to look for the positive spin.

Austerity – not drastic reduction in spending but a necessary budgetary adjustment allowing sustainable growth to resume.

 

Job Losses – an opportunity for a human being to reinvent themselves and discover how variety is truly a wonderful experience.

 

Security ­Measures – essential arrangements promoting confidence in our ability to travel, work and live safely moving towards a more prosperous and richer future.

Solvency – a sign of rock-solid stability allowing a financial institution to finance our futures with confidence.

Maybe this game feels artificial but positive words and expressions matter.

I would welcome your feedback – please send your comments to sandroboeri@riskaudit.co.uk

As accustomed as I am to public speaking, this is the one speech I hoped I would never have to give. Yet here we are – the funeral of my mother.

First of all I would like to share the basic story of Piera Pigi in Boeri that we see come to an end tomorrow at a cemetery in New Southgate.

This story starts in the little Italian village of Lazzali near Rustigazzo in Provincia Piacenza on the 8^th January in 1925 – 86 years ago.

Having led a very normal childhood (in so far as living through the 2^nd World Way in Northern Italy was ever normal) Piera decided to embark on her adventure to England and London in 1948.

Piera found work in a number of catering establishments in Battersea, Dalston, the West End and the City of London.

But there was something missing. That something was my father, Bernardo. Not content with what was available in London Piera returned to Italy and lured Bernardo to England telling him the streets were paved with gold. Well not quite. What
Piera meant was the fame associated in making shoes for the stars. Piera found her Dino a job working for Anello & Davide – the shoemaker to the Beatles, the Four Tops, Nancy Sinatra, the Rolling Stones and Luciano Pavarotti and many
many more.

My mother then proceeded to nurture her family as she guided my sister, Marilena and I, through school in Islington and onto secondary school.

The end result is here for all to judge!!

But this is just a short history lesson.

What I would really like to share with you are my mother’s enduring characteristics.

I will forever remember Piera resilience. Resilience that saw my mother refuse an amputation in relation to diabetic related gangrene. Promised almost certain death, my mother’s resilience went on to prove the medical profession wrong. She survived
the experience, the gangrene receded and she lived to fight another day – actually hundreds more.

My mother was a doting parent and grandparent. Not only did she find my father a job. Shealso found me my first job – guarding the cashmere sweaters in Littlewoods in Chapel Market.

Nothing gave Piera more pleasure than watching her grandchildren Francesca, Sophia and Daniele grow up. Her concern about my son’s love life endured to her final conversation with him the day before she died.

Like many ofher generation, Piera was a careful person. The bankers in the City of London would have done well to have heeded her advice. She believed that borrowing money was an unnecessary excess. If you did not have the money to buy something, then you should be patient and wait until you had worked hard enough to accumulate it. Patience was one of my mother’s most important
characteristics.

My mother’s love for her beloved Dino will remain an abiding memory. I recall with fondness my parents 50^th Wedding anniversary celebration last year.

But there is one image I will never forget. The day before my mother died I watched hold her husband’s hand on a bench in her residential home’s garden. An image that will remain with me to the day I die.

But I have bad news for my dad and the children.

You were not number one.

That reveredposition was held by Her Majesty the Queen. My mother loved the Royal Family.Her hobby and passion was setting off early in the morning to witness Royal occasions.

I am delighted that mum was able to watch on television the wedding of William and Kate – an occasion that filled her with pleasure.

I said earlier that the journey ends tomorrow. I have to apologise but I have lied in church. The journey does not end tomorrow.

My mother lives on in her family and I hope that she will now guide us from her privileged position in heaven.

I have said enough.

To me Pierawas my mummy. Thank you for everything.

Is the banking industry or for that matter the planet in the middle of a “perfect storm”?

By perfect storm I mean “a critical or disastrous situation created by a powerful concurrence of factors”.

So what are these factors and how do they concur to provide a mess?

First of all we have signs of a dot.com bubble version 2.0. Last week’s flotation of LinkedIn provided evidence of inflated market prices paid for a database! We have seen this before in the early noughties. Clearly some investors are getting rich very quickly with little capital at risk creating a feel good factor that may be misplaced if one looks at other concurrent elements.

The world’s banks continue to face the prospect of crippling losses if certain countries default. Greece is said by some commentators to be insolvent. The realisation of this phenomenon could lead to a domino effect causing debt servicing issues in Spain and maybe even Italy (a country further crippled by a dysfunctional government and low growth).

As if this wasn’t enough there is no talk of certain countries exiting the euro causing extreme pressure on one of the planet’s reserve stores of wealth with consequential disruption.

Banks continue to suffer from an overhang of commercial property assets whose value is depressed. These assets and related loans sit on good bank balance sheets, on bad bank balance sheet, offshore with hedge funds and, I suspect, in cupboards yet to disclose their skeletons.

The guardians of the financial system remain locked in a naval-gazing phase. Legislators argue with regulators in the United States as to how to implement Dodds Frank or whether to implement it at all. The UK’s FSA is busy on cutting itself into at least two if not three pieces. Europe’s legislators and regulators fight for the right to influence regulation. The IMF – well let’s not intrude on private grief.

Maybe I am being alarmist but I sense a very real possibility that all of these factors will concur to create a storm that challenges the credit crunch in its ferocity.

Does your organisation have mechanisms to detect such a storm and to navigate your way around it?

These mechanisms sit somewhere close to your stress testing / scenario analytical processes.

How robust and developed are these processes?

If you would like to engage in a debate as to what “good” looks like in this world please e-mail me at sandroboeri@riskaudit.co.uk and let’s continue the discussion.

As I sit in Changi airport in Singapore musing about life, I have been reflecting on my work this week and, in particular, on the meaning of “Lines of Defence” in so far as this expression relates to the financial services sector.

What exactly are these defenders protecting us from?

Why do we use negative words? Why can’t we call them “Lines of Attack”?

More importantly how many lines of defence does a well run business actually need?

The bad news is that in some respects we have little choice in the matter. Globally un-coordinated regulators force us to employ certain functions. If we are lucky the regulators are not very specific as to what these functions should do. We therefore have a chance to design our optimal model. Inevitably we will need to tolerate some duplication in our operations. Lets be philosophical and view this as a cost of doing business!

What functions are we typically talking about when we refer to “lines of defence”?

I would list the following:-

• Management (1^st Line)
• Risk management (market, credit, operational risk management) / regulatory compliance / the human resource function / financial control (2^nd Line)
• Internal Audit (the 3^rd Line).

Somebody somewhere needs to be held accountable for managing the interface between these functions. Ideally this is the role of the board or audit committee. I would suggest this privilege should not be a perk of a chief executive intent on cost cutting.

The first challenge is to manage the overlap between these lines of defence. Have the individual tasks allocated to each line been catalogued, duplications identified and decisions made as to how many times something must be undertaken?  Pure duplication of process would seem to be a luxury. Does each function add more value in this context?

Common questions that arise when undertaking this comparison include:-

• What does operational risk management do that internal audit does not (or vice versa)?
• What does a risk management function add that management cannot provide?
• Where does product control sit in terms of lines of defence (number 1 or number 2)?

I am sure you can think of many many more questions.

Do the various lines of defence get in each others’ way? Have you created a set of teams competing against each other and struggling to be heard? Has this led to intense internal politics at worst leading to misrepresentation to outdo and do down each other?

In working with risk managers, auditors and operational risk managers I cannot help but reflect on the absolute lack of meaningful standards within financial services as to what each body should actually be doing.

There is no global accepted standard within financial services as to exact purpose of internal audit versus operational risk management for example in terms of advocating improvements to the internal control framework.

Maybe it is time that the international bodies such as Basel, IOSCO and so on sought to produce a paper on “Lines of Defence – Best Market Practice”.

One of the most obvious challenges is the need to limit the amount of time management spend in appeasing the 2^nd and 3^rd lines. A good friend of time working in wealth management business told me that in the space of a month he was visited six times by six different “control functions” who asked him the same question.

Is this really necessary at a time when financial institutions struggle with cost: income ratios?

Another dimension to this discussion is one of proximity. To understand an issue one needs to have an adequately detailed grasp of the information. There is a limit as to how many people can get this understanding. Is there any value in employing “lines of defence” that do not get close enough to a problem to really understand what is at stake? Is there a danger that too many corporate governors will end with everybody crowding each other out and nobody understanding the essential things that matter?

Finally I am reflecting as to why we need lines of defence at all. If we employed reliable and trustworthy management then there would be no need for 2^nd and 3^rd lines of defence. Maybe I am being naive but it is getting late.