Bar graph shows how 250 company directors ranked 10 risk categories in order of importance to their boards of directors. The directors were asked, “Aside from financial risk, which of the following areas of risk management are most important to your board?” The options were reputational risk; cybersecurity/information technology; regulatory compliance; CEO succession planning; crisis management; disaster recovery; product risk; risk due to fraud; outsourcing; and tax strategies. Out of all 10 categories, crisis management was the fifth most important risk category.

The full results, in order, were as follows:

72 percent of directors ranked reputation as the most important risk-related issue; 62 percent of directors ranked cybersecurity and information technology as the most important risk-related issue; 50 percent of directors ranked regulatory compliance as the most important risk-related issue; 47 percent of directors ranked CEO succession planning as the most important risk-related issue; 31 percent of directors ranked crisis management as the most important risk-related issue; 30 percent of directors ranked disaster recovery as the most important risk-related issue; in a tie, 29 percent of directors ranked both product risk and fraud as the most important risk-related issues;15 percent of directors ranked outsourcing of labor as the most important risk-related issue; and 14 percent of directors ranked tax strategy as the most important risk-related issue.

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