By Jim Wetekamp, CEO, Riskonnect | Published by Future of Sourcing, March 7, 2023 |
In this series, Future of Sourcing is talking to practitioners, technologists, and executives to get their insights and expertise on navigating current and future challenges impacting sourcing, procurement, risk, and supply chain professionals. After the past two years, there’s a lot that we can learn from each other.
As the CEO of Riskonnect, can you speak to your company’s broader ESG and risk management efforts and any outcomes you’ve seen from these initiatives?
As a software company, our supply chain is fairly small. We regularly look for ways to reduce the environmental impact of our facilities, computer hardware, and cloud infrastructure hosting services. We encourage employees to minimize travel and leverage virtual meeting tools wherever possible. Our technology helps customers reduce their own footprint. We are an integrated suite platform provider that enables customers to consolidate their use of multiple cloud platforms, minimize the need for on-premises hardware systems, and bring all aspects of risk under one roof. We also take social matters seriously. We closely review the socio-political impact of countries where Riskonnect team members are based. We prioritize diversity recruitment, develop outreach programs in partnership with local colleges and universities, and provide global training programs that do deep dives into culture and sensitivity bias. Riskonnect team members and our hosting infrastructure vendors are intentionally spread across selected locations in several different geographies, which diversifies our business input risks. We choose to work with third parties and partners whose values align with our own. This primes us for success as ESG and third-party risk become even more integral to an all-encompassing risk management strategy. In 2023, Riskonnect joined the United Nations Global Compact initiative. This global network of over 15,000 companies and 3,800 nonbusiness signatories is committed to driving responsible business practices and building a sustainable future. As a member of the network, Riskonnect will be responsible for publishing an annual “communication on progress” that demonstrates our efforts to align operations and strategies with the ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment, and anticorruption that are at the center of the UN Global Compact’s mission.
