Skip to main content
ICD Calendar
Back toICD Board Fundamentals

Description

While COVID-19 and political disruptions pose ongoing threats, they have also accelerated and exposed other existing hazards. Cybersecurity vulnerabilities, lack of emergency preparedness, supply chain disruption, reputation risk management in the digital age, and many other internal and external dangers are forcing boards to take a more proactive approach to risk oversight.

As the scope of risk oversight expands beyond strategic and operational risks, organizations are also encountering increasing shareholder and stakeholder engagement and activism, particularly in environmental, social and corporate governance. These developments require boards to be more proactive and engaged in overseeing risk management processes.

Developed in partnership with CPA Canada, and based on the CPA Canada’s: A Framework for Board Oversight of Enterprise Risk, Enterprise Risk Oversight for Directors will equip you with a greater awareness of the board’s role, including value creation, and how to engage in the risk oversight process constructively.

Understand how to better identify and address critical risks, how risks are interconnected and recognize the potential compounding effects of risks. Expert faculty will guide you through modern-day case studies and exercises where you will apply the concepts of the framework in circumstances that organizations may face today.

Who Should Participate?

  • The Board Oversight of Risk is ideal for boards of directors of all industry and organization types who want to improve their navigation of enterprise risk management oversight.

Key Benefits

  • After completing all components of the course, participants will:
    • Enhance awareness of the purpose and value of enterprise risk management.
    • Know how the board should effectively govern the oversight of an organization’s risk management.
    • Acquire a practical framework to oversee enterprise risk, specifically designed for boards of directors.
    • Implement this framework to ensure proactive risk management processes are in place and functioning effectively.
    • Determine why an organization’s risk appetite and culture are essential and how to oversee them successfully.
    • Understand how to identify and assess risks and assign accountabilities to mitigate corporate risk.
    • Apply proven risk mitigation techniques to manage emerging risks, such as ESG-related risks.
    • Qualify for 8 CEUs toward the annual requirement to retain their ICD.D designation
    Participants will obtain the knowledge and insights to fully comprehend the role of the board in enterprise risk management today. Participants will also develop their capacity to evaluate how risks interrelate and assess how this may impact the organization.

Format

This program uses a blended online learning structure that weaves together best practices in adult education with opportunities to engage with peers.

  • The structure includes:
    1. Independent online learning (five to six hours)This is a critical component of the course (and includes an e-learning module, videos, readings, and more). It introduces key concepts and will prepare participants for effective participation in the live session and ensure they are ready to apply learnings from the course to their board work. The required independent learning should be completed prior to the live session. It is meant to be completed at a pace that works best for each participant.

    2. Live, instructor-led session (approximately five hours)
      This instructor-led online session will focus on the application of concepts covered through independent learning. Attendance at the live session is required for successful course completion. The live session includes class discussions, breakout group discussions and exercises, Q & A with instructors and other experts, and live interactive panel discussions.

    3. Supplemental resources and tools
      Participants will receive supplemental resources to augment the required components of their independent learning packages

    4. Learning sustainment and engagement opportunities
      Following course completion, participants will be invited to join an Alumni Portal, becoming part of a community where they gain access to tools and resources to help apply course learnings in real-life settings. They will also have opportunities to engage in discussion forums with course peers to exchange questions, ideas and experiences and apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills.

Course Offerings

  •  
    City Course Application Deadline Live session  Time
    Online RSK006 September 27, 2023 October 18, 2023 10 am - 3:00 p.m. ET 

Faculty


Participants will benefit from the collective knowledge, insights and guidance of a best-in-class teaching team with diverse experience across a variety of types of boards.
 

Robert (Bob) McFarlane, ICD.D Headshot

Robert (Bob) McFarlane, ICD.D

National Academic Director and Lead Instructor

Robert (Bob) McFarlane, ICD.D

National Academic Director and Lead Instructor

Bob has an accomplished career of value creation as one of Canada’s leading executives and has been a proponent of corporate governance best practices with two dozen years of corporate board service.

He became CFO of start-up national wireless carrier Clearnet for its 1994 IPO and quarterbacked the raising of over $3 billion in financings. Following its $7.7 billion (enterprise value) acquisition in 2000, he served as CFO of TELUS until 2013. In 2007, Bob was named Canada’s Top CFO. He serves on the board of HSBC Bank Canada where he chairs the Audit, Risk & Conduct Committee and represents Canada at global group risk committee board meetings.

Since November 2018, Bob has been a member of the board of one of Canada’s largest property and casualty insurers, Definity Financial. In November 2021, Definity completed its demutualization and closed its IPO and concurrent cornerstone private placements to Swiss Re, and Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund, raising aggregate proceeds of $2.3B.

Bob previously served as Audit & Risk Chair of Entertainment One (a former LSE listed entity until its USD $4B acquisition by Hasbro), TSX listed InnVest REIT, as well as Royal & Sun Alliance (RSA) Canada.

In the NFP sector, since 2014 Bob chairs the UBC Information Technology Advisory Council, as well as the Salvation Army’s Greater Vancouver Advisory Board. Formerly, he was Vice Chair of the Salvation Army’s National Advisory Board, served on the Board of Trustees of Queen’s University and Chaired the Capital Assets & Finance Committee until 2022.

Bob serves on the Executive of the BC Chapter of the Institute of Corporate Directors as Vice Chair. He frequently moderates and speaks on corporate governance sessions and webinars on topics including corporate culture, digital strategy, corporate purpose beyond profit, designing an effective board, ethical oversight, oversight of enterprise risk management, oversight of large complex projects, etc.

Bob holds a Commerce degree from the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University and an MBA from the Ivey Business School at Western University. In 2015 was inducted into the Queen’s University Football Hall of Fame as a builder.
Robert (Bob) McFarlane, ICD.D Headshot
Poonam Puri LSM, LLM, ICD.D Headshot

Poonam Puri LSM, LLM, ICD.D

Director-in-Residence

Corporate Director and Professor of Corporate Governance, Osgoode Hall Law School.  

Poonam Puri LSM, LLM, ICD.D

Director-in-Residence

Corporate Director and Professor of Corporate Governance, Osgoode Hall Law School.  
Corporate Director and Professor of Corporate Governance, Osgoode Hall Law School. 
 
Poonam Puri is a tenured full professor of business law and former Associate Dean at Osgoode Hall Law School. She is an experienced corporate director, a practising corporate/securities lawyer at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, and one of Canada’s most respected experts in corporate governance, business strategy and ESG.  
 
Ms. Puri serves on public and private company boards in a broad range of industries spanning real estate, infrastructure, engineering, mining and fintech.  She currently serves as a director of Colliers International Group, Propel Holdings, DRI Healthcare Trust, Solaris Resources and Canada Infrastructure Bank. Poonam is a former Ontario Securities Commission commissioner and a former director of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, CAPREIT, Arizona Mining and Cole Engineering. She is also a former director of Women’s College Hospital and currently serves as Chair of Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto.    
 
Ms. Puri has been recognized with the Peter Dey Governance Achievement Award, the Law Society Medal, the Ontario Attorney General’s David Walter Mundell Medal, and the Royal Society of Canada’s Yvan Allaire Medal for excellence in contributions to governance. She is a past recipient of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 and has been recognized as one of the top 25 most influential lawyers in Canada by Canadian Lawyer Magazine. Ms. Puri is a graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law (LL.B., 1995, Silver Medalist) and Harvard Law School (LL.M., 1997). 
Poonam Puri LSM, LLM, ICD.D Headshot

Brochure Download

Please complete to download the brochure.

I consent to receiving emails from the ICD. I understand I can unsubscribe at any time. See our Privacy Policy for more details.

Resources

More Resources

Top