CAROL ALEXANDER – THE PROFESSIONAL RISK MANAGER HANDBOOK

The book is called the Handbook for the Professional Risk Manager. It is for professionals who want to demonstrate their skills in the field of financial risk management and for those looking for an excellent reference source. The Handbook is designed to give you the knowledge and understanding of the building blocks of professional financial risk management with contributions from nearly 40 leading authors. Financial risk management isn’t about avoiding risk. Understanding and communicating risk is what it is about, so that risk can be taken more confidently and in a better way. The Handbook is your guide if you are interested in insurance, banking, energy, asset management, weather, or one of many other industries. Section I introduces the foundations of finance theory, the financial instruments that provide tools for the transfer of risk, and the financial markets in which instruments are traded and capital is raised. Section II covers the mathematical foundations of risk assessment. It is essential for every risk manager to be able to assess risks, because there are many nuances to the practice of risk management that go beyond the quantitative. The chapters in this section are accessible to everyone. The online spreadsheets that accompany the examples help to understand the mathematical and statistical concepts that form the basis of risk assessment. Current and best practices of Market, Credit and Operational risk management are described in Section III. We apply the foundations of Sections I and II to our profession in very specific ways here. The application of risk management to capital allocation and risk-adjusted performance measurement is strategic. At the end of your progression through these materials, you will discover that you have gained more knowledge and skills than you thought. You will challenge yourself as well. You will be a better risk manager. The Professional Risk Managers Handbook is for this reason.

Carol Alexander is the author of The Professional Risk Manager Handbook.