You Legal: the Superheroes of Risk
I think a lot about You Legal's values and how we can create a firm that allows our clients to be the best risk managers in the world. So as I began developing our new risk management product, “Growth Shield”, I sought to understand who in the world best-managed risk. I found prime examples of world-class risk managers in two very unexpected spaces. Firstly, I discovered that the people who tended to excel in the underworld were brilliant and calculating and managing risk. And secondly, I discovered that some superheroes were too. One of the hero characters that really jumped out at me as a person who excelled at managing risk on the fly was the one and only Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. So naturally, I wanted to get to know her a little better.
How I Met Lara Croft
As I began to read more about Lara, I discovered something very interesting. One of the people who acted her part in the Tomb Raider game series was a Melbourne-born, LA Based model and actor, Megan Farquhar had actually reached out to me to help with voicing in some of our training videos. Serendipity! I emailed, we Skyped, and we bonded. The result: she agreed to launch my new book, Kingpin: Legal Lessons from the Underworld, as Lara Croft.
Why she is a match for You Legal
When Lara Croft sees an opportunity to discover something new, she takes it by both hands. She is courageous, but she is also careful. She thinks deeply about the challenges that she will face in her mission. What I love about her is that she understands that no plan survives contact with the enemy and knows that risk must be planned for but also managed as the situation changes in the field. For me, she represents that balance between backroom strategy and front-line tactical response that inspires a team to think clearly under fire and know when to stick like glue to the playbook and when to regroup, get creative and flip the script. As a business leader, this balance is one that I consider daily. When do I innovate and equip my team with a new game plan? And when do I cleave to vision, grit my teeth and push hard on the throttle? Getting this balance right is the hallmark of the world's best risk managers - the ones that can seize key opportunities while protecting their team from the dire risks that surround them.
What it means to us to have her launch Kingpin
The world is changing. The risk space is changing at an unprecedented rate, and that rate of change is only going to increase. To provide the solutions that CFOs and business owners need to survive, our team knows that we must go beyond the status quo of risk minimization and help the leaders of the industry walk the tightrope between the risks that could wipe them out and the opportunities that can make them number one. Those sorts of insights come from knowing who we are right now and who we must be tomorrow as we shield the industry on the coal face of risk. Lara Croft and her real-world embodiment Megan, remind me that when I get the balance of strategy and tactics right and have the courage to take action at the moment, I am being the person that my clients need me to be. To have a hero like Lara Croft offer to launch my new book, Kingpin, at the 7th annual Australian microcap investment conference in Melbourne on 18 October 2016 reminds me that when my vision aligns with reality, perfect collaborations present themselves.
Ask what other heroes, both real & imaginary, our community would like to see us align with in the future
Who else do you know that we should be aligning with? If you know of a superhero that you think is a brilliant risk manager or of a risk manager that you believe is a hero in the industry, let us know here or call us at 1300 870 661.
Want more?
"Download Our E-Book "Kingpin: Legal Lessons from the Underworld"