Teaching the Next Generation of Risk Managers

It was not until his senior year at the University of Georgia's Terry School of Business that Andy Kuchar took his first risk management elective. His professor invited professionals from the business world to lecture on the different facets of the risk management industry,

opening up an entirely new discipline to Kuchar. After graduation, he went to work as an auditor for KPMG, but soon decided that life as a corporate risk manager would be a better fit. So Kuchar returned to Terry to get a Ph.D. in risk management and along with his studies, began teaching younger students the same course that sparked his initial interest in risk management. Now, as the senior director of risk management for Arby's Restaurant Group, which maintains 3,500 restaurants worldwide, Kuchar has seen first-hand the increasing importance of formal risk management education. "It seems like an evolution is taking place," he says. "Companies are discovering that they need risk managers-they can't just take someone from another department and put a risk manager hat on them. I notice more and more job postings reading 'risk management degree preferred.'