Consulting Services

After decades working as a risk professional, it is exciting to see the value of risk management being recognised.  However, too often we see risk management frameworks, registers and processes that either get reluctantly updated each month or year or simply forgotten. 

The reality is that we manage risk everyday. 

An effective risk framework should be a mechanism that allows you and your organisation to understand where your material risk exposures are and have simple but effective mechanisms is place to oversee how they are being managed. Making risk management meaningful can seem hard - there are a lot of risks, the language is technical and often, it's hard to engage people in the processes. 

We believe that this is because risk frameworks are sometimes immature and often don't focus on how the processes actually help people do their job well - whether you a member of the Board, Executive team or on the front line.

Our risk services are designed to make risk useful and help you to uplift or enhance your practices, refresh your approach and more proactive manage risk, to not just protect value, but to create it.

Our enterprise risk management maturity services allow you to get a complete picture of how risk is managed across your organisation across a core set of risk elements including:

• Risk Governance - the documents, frameworks, committees and allocation of roles and responsibilities
• Risk Culture - how your organisation thinks about and defines risk, including the levels of awareness of risk and how "bad news" is received and actioned. 
• Risk Assessment - the processes in place to consistently identify, evaluate and treat risks
• Risk Monitoring and Reporting - the risk insights that Boards and Executive receive to inform decision-making based on the indicators and measures in place to monitor progress.
• Controls and Assurance - the actions in place to manage the risk and the processes in place to give you "assurance" or confidence that they are working.
• Risk Systems - the systems that support these processes whether they are manual or a GRC system.

An Enterprise Risk Managment Maturity assessment gives you a snapshot of your current state through desktop review of your existing documents and interviews with stakeholders. We then examine where you want to be, your "target state" of maturity and from these two points, develop practical and actionable recommendations in the form of a final report.

What you get:

• Current state assessment of risk approach
• Agreed target state based on the unique size, scale and nature of your business
• A detailed report including observations and recommendations to enhance risk maturity. 

Whether your risk documentation has been "left on the shelf" or you simply need something developed from scratch, we can draft risk management artefacts aligned to your size, scale and operations. Risk documents include:

• Risk Management Framework
• Risk Management Policy
• Risk Management Processes
• Risk Appetite Statement
• Risk Reporting Framework#
• Risk Registers 

Risk Appetites are a crucial tool for executive decision making, providing the parameters around where and when to take risk in order to achieve your objectives. A living document, the Risk Appetite Statement, requires annual review and update involving the Board and Executive team.

We can facilitate the development of a new or existing Risk Appetite Statement that reflects the trade-offs and tensions you face in navigating the risks and opportunities associated with achieving your strategic objectives.

Our approach includes reviewing your strategy, risk profile and any existing documentation to inform an interactive workshop with Board and Management. This allows us to unpack the trade-offs and agree on the boundaries for risk taking. A revised Risk Appetite Statement is then provided as the final deliverable. 

What you get:

• Review of existing documents and understanding of your unique business
• Workshop preparation and facilitation
• Risk Appetite Statement  

Enterprise risks are those that require the attention of Board and Managment and an annual risk review is part of most Board and Executive agendas for a reason. Although sometimes the thought of a risk workshop causes people's eyes to glaze over, when done well they provide a fabulous forum for strategic discussion.

We specialise in running enterprise risk workshops that bring together the crucial nexus of strategy and risk. To achieve you goals you need to understand the things that might stop - or support - you getting there.  And if you are a board that is looking at over 20 enterprise risks, that is not risk oversight, it's noise. 

With over two decades of risk facilitation experience, we understand how to work with you to develop a clear and meaningful analysis of your risk profile. 

What you get:

• Co-design of workshop approach and materials with key stakeholders
• Preparation of all workshop materials
• Facilitation of a Board and Management workshop (preferrable onsite)
• An updated list of Enterprise Risks 
• Associated risk ratings and key controls (if required).

Data with no insights is just a distraction.  Too often Boards and Executives get risk reports that are overly detailed, static or don't provide a useful overview of where the material issues, risks or exposures are.

We can help you to design a risk reporting framework that defines what each group needs and why, and the frequency and content of the reports. Working with you, we build templates that can be built into existing APIs or systems (where applicable) to allow for automation, reducing preparation time for management. 

The governance landscape is constantly evolving and with it, the role of boards and directors.

We can assist you to review your board performance as part of your ongoing evaluation obligations or a desire to understand your board's strengths and opportunities to improve

Board performance reviews are a cornerstone of good governance. As the governance and risk landscape evolves, expectations on boards and directors continue to grow — prompting many to ask:

Are we getting this right?
What might we be missing?
What does good look like for us?

These are essential questions of self-reflection that deserve meaningful, practical answers.

At Staples Advisory, our board performance review services combine quantitative data and qualitative insights to provide a complete view of how your board is performing — and where it can strengthen. Using a proven online survey tool, we gather benchmarked data and complement it with one-on-one interviews with directors and management (where requested). This blended approach allows us to explore areas of alignment, tension, and opportunity in greater depth.

 Our review delivers a clear and actionable report that includes:

• Survey results benchmarked against similar organisations.
   
• Qualitative analysis and observations drawn from over 20 years of governance and risk experience.
   
• A prioritised roadmap of recommendations and actions to track and monitor progress over time.
   

We partner with a trusted provider of board effectiveness surveys — Board Benchmarking — whose tools are based on a peer-reviewed set of questions exploring board structures, processes and culture. This ensures a robust, evidence-based assessment with benchmarking against comparable entities.

Click here for more details about our survey tool provider, Board Benchmarking.

Having worked in professional services for over 20 years, we understand clients' need for excellence, meaningful insight and practical, fit-for-purpose recommendations. 

Susan has delivered board reviews across a range of sectors and entity types including:

• APRA Regulated entities
• Public agencies, including health and education
• Aged care and Community service providers
• Not-for-profit entities
• ASX Listed entities
• Federated models
• Peak/member based bodies.

We bring you a depth of experience matched with an approach aimed squarely at helping you and your organisation to help understand what "good looks like" for you that is supported by a roadmap of relevant and meaningful actions.