The achievement of Chr. Hansen’s long-term purpose and business strategy requires a shared understanding of key risks and the overall level of risk exposure throughout the Company.
The Company’s position on enterprise risk stipulates how Chr. Hansen applies enterprise risk management as a concept, how it applies to all areas of the organization, and how it is integrated into the business processes and the strategy development process. The risk management process ensures a healthy balance between risk and return in the Company’s business model. Therefore, for Chr. Hansen, enterprise risk management is not about risk avoidance but about ensuring risk awareness and that adequate control and mitigations are in place.
The Company works with concrete and specific risks, providing the ability to track and work in a dedicated manner with the individual risks and mitigations. Through cross-organizational participation, the Company takes a holistic approach to analyzing risks, ensuring that risks are addressed from all perspectives. To achieve clear risk ownership and an embedded risk culture within the Company, Risk Champs are appointed in each business unit. The purpose of Risk Champs is to facilitate risk management discussions locally and support the risk review processes, enabling decentralized risk structure and management, where appropriate.
Governance structure
The Board of Directors and the Executive Board maintain a strong focus on the enterprise risk management process to safeguard that risk management remains an integral part of decision-making processes. The Audit Committee is responsible for reviewing the effectiveness of risk management.
Risk reviews are conducted on a quarterly basis with the Executive Board, and bi-annually with the Board of Directors. Through these reviews, Management discusses current risks and ensures that the right risk mitigation strategies are adopted and are effective. The enterprise risks are assessed in terms of six impact drivers:
- Safety
- Compliance
- Financials
- Business
- Interruption
- Environment
- Brand & Reputation.
The risks are assessed in respect of the likelihood of the impact materializing.
The Company operates a three-tier risk system ensuring clarity and transparency in the reporting process. Tier 1 risks, the most significant risks, are reported to, and monitored by, the Board of Directors. Tier 2 risks are managed by the Executive Board, while Tier 3 risks are managed locally by the respective leadership teams.
