RIMS recognizes LA County’s Robles as Risk Manager of the Year
Additionally, RIMS inducted Tata Consumer Products’ Mrunal Pandit to its Risk Management Honor Roll.
RIMS bestowed its Risk Manager of the Year award to Steven Robles, assistant CEO and county risk manager for the County of Los Angeles.
The risk management organization also inducted Mrunal Pandit, senior manager of insurance at Tata Consumer Products Ltd., into its Risk Management Honor Roll.
Started in 1977, the Risk Manager of the Year program aims to highlight the outstanding programs the honorees instituted, while also raising the profile for the risk management profession, RIMS reported. The Risk Management Honor Roll was added in 1981.
“Despite coming from different parts of the world and from opposite business sectors, this year’s honorees have demonstrated the universal power of risk management and its ability to drive enterprise forward,” said RIMS CEO Gary A. LaBranche. “Steven Robles and Mrunal Pandit have built robust risk programs that have empowered their organizations’ to keep people safe, support innovation, and strengthen resilience.”
Robles has spent the past 30 years working in risk management. During this tenure, he has leaned on creativity and innovation to transform risks programs, RIMS reported.
In his role with the County of Los Angeles, Robles is responsible for addressing the risks facing the municipality’s 100,000 employees stretched across 38 departments.
While with LA County, Robles and his team have implemented a multiyear plan aimed at cost control and liability reduction. Other key initiatives include expanding commercial insurance coverage to mitigate catastrophic losses, actively closing workers’ compensation claims for former employees and devising a comprehensive risk financing strategy to decrease long-term liabilities related to workers’ compensation.
Pandit joined Tata Consumer Products in 2017, and quickly started cataloging and mapping the company’s business units to better understand the full scope of the risks they face. With this information in hand, she began identifying insurable and non-insurable risks as well as exploring the benefits of self-insuring, according to RIMS.
Recognizing the absence of a system for managing natural catastrophe claims, Pandit took prompt action, emphasizing the potential business impact of floods. She organized a cross-functional claims team to develop a comprehensive framework for natural catastrophe risk mitigation and management, involving leaders from insurance, supply chain, finance, and other areas of the business.
Robles and Pandit will be recognized at RIMS’ Risk World event taking place May 5-May 8, 2024, in San Diego.
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