Season 1, Episode 2: Alexander Larsen continues his conversation with Gregory Irgin in the UAE

In this series of Risk Managers Getting Coffee, we’ll be meeting with seven Risk Managers to gain insight into their risk experiences, areas of expertise and to learn more about risk management in the country they work in.

Gregory shares his exciting stories of working in the Middle East and Africa and his experience on geopolitical and cultural risks.

Episodes will be released every few weeks here on the Risk Guide website and via our LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/risk-guide) and YouTube pages (https://www.youtube.com/c/riskguide).

Episode 2 Overview:

0:22 Stories from projects abroad: Gregory discusses a time when he was a trigger for a protest in Cape Town, relating to the Green Point stadium being built. The local workers were unhappy about minimal salaries and the cost of fuel from their bus journey to site being deducted from their salary. Gregory spoke to the workers with his own opinion that he wouldn’t accept it, which started the protest.

2:50 Cultural differences: Alexander and Gregory discuss the importance in considering local cultures when working abroad or with clients from different countries and gaining experience. Alexander talks about a time working with Norwegian colleagues with different cultural approaches and blame culture. Gregory mentions a time working in New York and the importance of communication and language to order a coffee!

3:55 Meeting the President of Switzerland: Gregory tells a story of speaking to a Swiss delegation including the president of Switzerland about Iraq and Kurdistan. The speakers received a Swiss army knife as a gift and Gregory was stopped at the airport with it. When he explained it was gift from the Switzerland president, the airport security guard let him board with it.

5:02 Communication: Gregory talks about a North American client in Dubai with work in old Somalia and a security group from South Africa, Gregory had to translate between accents in English with the Americans and South Africans. Gregory and Alexander also discuss the change in safety and risk perceptions of areas in the Middle East.

7:03 Managing Risk after the Event (Covid-19 similarities): Gregory talks about advising companies after an event or disruption. Just because things haven’t happened yet, doesn’t meant they won’t happen in the future. Need to move away from the trend of managing structures and changing cultures only after an event or disruption. When leading an organisation, you need to have the right qualities and structure within the organisation, have the right information to make decisions. Gregory gives at the example of Brexit, there was a lot of discord in middle England but people were only listening to the market in London and the media. Should have been looking at what the risk was and the percentage of people wanting Brexit.

In this episode, Alexander Larsen met Gregory Irgin in the UAE. Gregory influences and drives integrated risk management – enterprise risk management, insurance, resilience (business continuity management and crisis security management) – resulting in shareholder protection and return on investment. He has worked across the Middle East and Africa and has exciting stories to share around geopolitical risks.

Introduction: Gregory is Head of Group ERM and Insurance within the aluminium and smelting sector in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, producing and selling aluminium in its 100% form. His customers are all over the world including big companies such as BMW. A mine coming online in Guinea and sales offices are based in America, Europe and China.