Risk intelligence
title: "Risk intelligence" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["risk-management-in-business", "actuarial-science", "risk-analysis", "business-intelligence"] topic_path: "general/risk-management-in-business" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_intelligence" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
Risk intelligence is a concept that generally means "beyond risk management", though it has been used in different ways by different writers. The term is being used more frequently by business strategists when discussing integrative business processes related to governance, risk, and compliance.
Definitions
The first non-definitive usage of the phrase "risk intelligence" appears in the 1980s and aligns to the definition of intelligence as being information from an enemy (for example, regarding credit risk.) | last = Dedijer | first = Stevan | title = Intelligence for Economic Development: An Inquiry into the Role of the Knowledge Industry | publisher = Berg Pub Ltd | location = Oxford | date = 1987 | page = 288 | isbn = 978-0854965205 | last = Fischhoff | first = Baruch | title = Acceptable Risk | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge | date = 1984 | page = 204 | isbn = 978-0521278928
The US business writer David Apgar defines it as the capacity to learn about risk from experience. | last = Apgar | first = David | authorlink = David Apgar | title = Risk Intelligence: Learning to Manage What We Don't Know | publisher = Harvard Business School Publishing | location = Boston | date = 2006 | page = 210 | isbn = 1-59139-954-8
Deloitte Risk Advisory partner (since retired) Stephen Wagner, along with former Deloitte partner and current management consultant and risk advisor Rick Funston, defined risk intelligence as a dynamic approach to protect and create value amid uncertainty. It is an enterprise wide process integrating people, processes (systems), and tools to increase information available to decision makers for improved decision making. | last = Funston, Frederick | first = and Wagner, Stephen | title = Surviving and thriving in uncertainty: creating the risk intelligent enterprise | url = https://archive.org/details/survivingthrivin00funs | url-access = limited | publisher = John Wiley & Sons, Inc. | location = Hoboken, New Jersey | date = 2010 | page = 338 | isbn = 978-0-470-24788-4
The UK philosopher and psychologist Dylan Evans defines it as "a special kind of intelligence for thinking about risk and uncertainty", at the core of which is the ability to estimate probabilities accurately. | last = Evans | first = Dylan | authorlink = Dylan Evans | title = Risk Intelligence: How to Live with Uncertainty | publisher = Free Press | location = New York | date = 2012 | page = 288 | isbn = 978-1-4516-1090-1 IQ or EQ.
Computer scientist and risk researcher Jochen L. Leidner{{cite arXiv | eprint = 1510.08285 | last = Leidner | first = Jochen L. | title = Computer-Supported Risk Identification for the Holistic Management of Risks | date = 2015 | page = 5 | class = q-fin.GN
American financial executive, author, and Columbia University professor Leo Tilman defined risk intelligence as "The organizational ability to think holistically about risk and uncertainty, speak a common risk language, and effectively use forward-looking risk concepts and tools in making better decisions, alleviating threats, capitalizing on opportunities, and creating lasting value." He has argued that risk intelligence is essential to survival, success, and relevance of companies and investors in the post-crisis world. In this latest book Agility: How to Navigate the Unknown and Seize Opportunity in a World of Disruption (2019, co-authored with General Charles H. Jacoby Jr.), Tilman describes risk intelligence as a cornerstone of organizational agility.
Comparison with business intelligence
As an emerging concept, risk intelligence shares characteristics with other topics such as business intelligence and competitive intelligence. As such, there are some in those camps who believe that risk intelligence is the set of processes for the transformation of risk data into meaningful and useful information for risk analysis, treatment and planning purposes.
References
References
- Tilman, L.. [http://www.europeanfinancialreview.com/?p=591 Risk Intelligence: A Bedrock of Dynamism and Lasting Value Creation] Retrieved 2015-04-01
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