Author: Michele Wucker

Michele Wucker is a policy and business strategist and author of four books including YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World and the global bestseller THE GRAY RHINO: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore. Read more about her at https://www.thegrayrhino.com/about/michelewucker

Michele Wucker wrote, “No, the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t an ‘unforeseen problem’” in The Washington Post March 17, 2020. “An obsession with the “unforeseeable” black swan metaphor has promoted a mentality that led us straight into the mess we’re in now: a sense of helplessness in the face of daunting threats and a sucker’s mentality that encourages people to keep throwing good money after bad,” she wrote. “And the facile willingness to see crises as black swans has provided policymakers cover for failing to act in the face of clear and present dangers from climate change to health care to economic…

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Michele Wucker was interviewed in the Huffington Post “Why We Panic about the Coronavirus but not about the Climate Crisis,” published on March 13, 2020. “With climate change and the coronavirus, things seem to go slowly until all of a sudden they go fast. While they’re still going slowly is when you have a chance to stop them ― but, of course, people don’t usually act until they are about to get trampled,” she said. “The coronavirus can set a very real example for climate change: The sooner you act, the more chance you have of surviving. This is true…

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Michele Wucker wrote “Is Your Board Risk Ready?” for strategy+business March 11, 2020. “Your company’s board of directors is charged with reviewing all kinds of risks to the corporation. But how well prepared are its members to do so? How ready are directors to evaluate, communicate, and act on risks — and thus to better ensure that their companies are doing a good job? A great deal rides on the answers to these questions. Risk oversight of the boards themselves is what the Conference Board, a business membership and research organization, recently called the “next frontier in corporate governance.” Read…

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This is a strange year for my fifth annual round-up of the things that keep the world’s risk observers up at night. Why? Because the big thing on everyone’s mind right now did not make it on to most lists. That thing is, of course, the novel coronavirus outbreak and its outsized impact on the global economy. Most top-risks-of-the-coming-year lists are designed to attract headlines at a time of year when news is often slow because the world is on holiday or just emerging from it. So most were issued before COVID-19 really took hold. There were some relevant references…

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As infections accelerate in South Korea, Italy, and Iran, policy makers are wondering if the COVID-19 virus is escalating into a pandemic and market participants fear that it could hit the global economy hard enough to knock it into a recession. Traditionally, a pandemic is an infectious disease epidemic that crosses borders. Paradoxically, the World Health Organization, which is charged with coordinating international efforts to stop pandemics, has stopped using the word. Officially, COVID-19 is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC (which, appropriately, sounds like a sound someone who has it might make). The number of confirmed COVID-19…

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Viral disinformation is making it harder for public health workers to deal with the very real challenges of fighting the COVID-19 virus. Wiktionary defines an infodemic as “An excessive amount of information concerning a problem such that the solution is made more difficult.” The last edit was made nearly a year ago, February 28, 2019, showing that COVID-19 was not the source of the term, even though it is a perfect example. Infodemics more and more will complicate real crises.  The World Health Organization, the United Nations’ health organization, has been waging war on the infodemic front as well as against COVID-19. It met recently with major tech companies about stemming…

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China and the world are mourning Dr. Li Wenliang, one of the doctors who attempted to spread an early warning of the Wuhan coronavirus and were reprimanded and detained by local officials in early January. Dr Li, who was only thirty-four years old, died of the virus in the wee hours Friday morning. Upon hearing of Dr. Li’s death, Wuhan residents gathered at Wuhan Central Hospital to honor him with flowers, photos and heartfelt sentiments. China’s chief epidemiologist has praised the whistleblower doctors. China’s highest court also recognized that the doctors were trying to prevent a bigger crisis, and reprimanded local officials who tried to…

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In “Wrangling the Grey Rhinos of ESG,” published February 4, 2020, Michele Wucker wrote for Citywire’s New Model Adviser magazine about how gray rhino theory applies to ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) investing paradigms. “Climate change and financial crisis are the kind of issues I was thinking of when I coined the term ‘grey rhino’ – a metaphor for big, obvious, probable risks that are charging straight at us. Everyone knows climate change and financial risk are out there, and it is easy to think that someone must be dealing with them. But paradoxically, their obviousness, size, and high probability…

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