Strategist, speaker, Qualified Risk Director®, educator, and best-selling author Michele Wucker founded Gray Rhino & Company to help leaders, organizations, and communities to identify and strategize responses to “gray rhino” risks: the term she coined to urge people to face up to challenges that are obvious and probable yet which all too often are neglected despite, and often because of, their size.
Michele is a former think tank and media executive and the author of four books, including YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World (Pegasus Books, April 2021; Chinese simplified characters edition via CITIC, September 2021; Taiwan, Commonwealth Books January 2022; Romania, Editura Creator March 2022; South Korea, Miraebooks, July 2022). Her third book was the international bestseller, THE GRAY RHINO: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore.
Michele introduced the gray rhino® concept at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos in 2013. She developed it in her eponymous 2016 book, which was released to widespread praise from global business, policy, and thought leaders. Translations of THE GRAY RHINO have been released in China (simplified Chinese characters), Hungary, South Korea, Taiwan (traditional Chinese characters), Norway, Brazil, and Italy.
Michele is a founding faculty member of the DCRO Risk Governance Institute, the leading provider of certification in risk governance for board directors and chief risk officers. She also serves an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia’s Center for Public Safety and Justice, and has taught at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, Arizona State University Thunderbird School of Global Management, and Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.
She is a strategic advisor to IRM India, senior advisor at Preventable Surprises and APRI Armenia. She also has advised social enterprises and start-ups in cleantech, civtech, and leadership development. She served on the 2020-22 World Economic Forum Global Futures Council on Frontier Risks. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Women Corporate Directors, the Private Directors Association, and the Authors Guild.
Michele’s work has earned her recognitions as a 2009 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2008 American Council on Germany Young Leader, and a 2010 Women’s Media Center Woman Making History, among other honors.
Global Impact
The gray rhino metaphor and framework have moved markets, shaped financial policies, and made headlines around the world in more than 75 countries and 35 languages. It has shaped high-level debates from the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos to NATO to the Munich Security Conference to the Drucker Forum. The concept became emblematic of the ignored warnings that allowed the Covid-19 pandemic to escalate to catastrophic levels. The global K-pop phenomenon BTS referred to the gray rhino in a rap line in the hit song “Blue & Grey” in the context of depression and anxiety brought on by the pandemic.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, displays the book in his office and referred to gray rhinos in much referenced speeches in January 2021 and January 2019. Published in China in February 2017, it became a runaway best-seller. In a front-page editorial in People’s Daily in July 2017, senior government officials embraced the term “gray rhino” as a way to signal policy changes to reduce financial risk in the economy, sparking global media coverage from the front page of The New York Times to stories in Turkey, Malaysia, Qatar, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, and many other other countries around the world. The Governor of the Central Bank of the Philippines referred to the need to address gray rhinos in the title of a speech on financial crisis.
Nine US senators referenced the gray rhino in a 2020 letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. They warned: “If our financial institutions and their regulators, particularly the Fed, fail to price climate risks, we will knowingly walk into another ‘gray rhino’ event.” The book and concept also are widely used in national security, financial planning, business continuity, and ESG communities, as well as in university and business school coursework.
The gray rhino also has inspired a dance choreography in Australia, a reference in the science fiction novel Red Moon, the name of a crime syndicate in the Japanese anime video game and television series MR LOVE, and a jazz single in Japan.
Background and Recognitions
Michele draws on more than three decades of experience in strategy, economics and finance, public policy, turnarounds and crisis management, as well as media and think tank management and content creation. She has a broad background in behavioral economics, organizational dynamics, risk, geo-politics, and economic analysis.
Michele has delivered keynote speeches, presentations and workshops around the globe to business, policy, and university audiences in countries including Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Morocco, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, India, China, South Korea, Singapore, France, England, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Poland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Her 2019 TED Talk has been viewed more than 2.5 million times and counting.
Writing and Media
Michele’s writing on topics including crisis anticipation, risk management and response, finance and the global economy, immigration, citizenship, sovereign debt, women’s leadership, decision making, and international affairs has appeared around the world including in The Economist, Inc., The (NY) Observer, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, FT, strategy + business, and many others. She has appeared on many broadcast media including National Public Radio, CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC, and has been quoted in print media around the world.
Michele’s first two books are LOCKOUT: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends on Getting It Right (PublicAffairs, 2006) and WHY THE COCKS FIGHT: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola (Hill & Wang, 1999). Both have influenced policy debates at the highest levels.
Past Positions
Michele’s previous leadership positions include Vice President for Studies at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, President of the World Policy Institute, and Latin America Bureau Chief at International Financing Review. Before those roles, she was a debt correspondent for Dow Jones Emerging Markets Report and a reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel.
Education
Michele holds a B.A. from Rice University, a Master’s from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, a Certificate in Global Leadership from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, and a Certificate in Risk Governance® from the DCRO Institute, which also has awarded her the prestigious Qualified Risk Director® designation.
Social Media
Visit Michele on facebook, LinkedIn, bluesky, mastodon, or her author website.