When Risk Culture Gets Real: Building Trust, Dissent, and Debate at OMERS

In this engaging post-keynote conversation, Deb Barnes, Chief Risk Officer at OMERS, delves into the intricacies of what makes a risk culture not just present, but palpable. She explains that a healthy risk culture is one you can feel in the room — where trust enables open, unfiltered debate on critical issues. It's not just about policies; it’s about how people show up every day, with curiosity and courage.

Barnes makes a key distinction between general corporate culture and risk culture, arguing that while broader cultural nuances may vary globally within an organization, the principles of risk culture — psychological safety, trust, and rapid escalation of bad news — should be consistent across all teams. Risk teams play a crucial role in shaping this, not only through formal governance but by how they model behaviors daily. The message: one careless act from leadership can empty the trust bucket instantly.

She emphasizes the importance of tone from the top, but also the power of indirect influence — knowing who shapes the views of difficult stakeholders and using those relationships to foster change. Measuring cultural success is notoriously hard, but OMERS uses employee experience surveys as a quantitative anchor, complemented by the more subjective “quality of conversation” in key forums.

Practical tools like anonymous peer discussions and informal ‘culture champions’ help amplify quieter voices, ensuring ideas — not egos — lead decision-making. Burns champions the idea that fostering a healthy risk culture takes discipline, humility, and constant, intentional effort. Without that, even the best policies will fall flat.