Francisco Javier Muñoz explores how resilience is evolving from a standalone control function into a strategic business capability. He argues that organizations must move beyond siloed approaches to risk management and adopt integrated frameworks that add
For Francisco Javier Muñoz, resilience is increasingly understood not as a
standalone capability, but as an outcome of how effectively firms manage
non-financial risk across the enterprise - one that, at maturity, begins to
shape strategic positioning and long-term performance.
Speaking during a panel discussion on resilience at CeFPro’s 2026 Risk Evolve
conference in London, Muñoz, recently appointed to the Financial Markets
Standards Board after serving as Chief Compliance Officer at Santander
Corporate & Investment Banking, argued that the greatest challenge facing
organizations is not the emergence of entirely new risks but the way risks
increasingly interact, propagate and crystallise across organizational and risk
boundaries.
“The speed, the scale, interconnectivity, the complexity of managing risk
across the board” is the greatest challenge, he said, emphasising that firms
must move beyond viewing financial and nonfinancial risks as separate
disciplines.
Instead, organizations need a more integrated, structural enterprise-wide
risk management approach that supports earlier identification of emerging
issues and enables more effective, joined-up decision-making.
That shift requires a change in how decisions are made. Events such as
geopolitical shocks cannot be managed effectively by individual subject matter
experts operating independently.
Subject matter expertise remains critical, but it needs to be complemented
by clearer integration at key decision points, ensuring risks are assessed
collectively rather than through single-function lenses.
Financial crime specialists, sanctions experts, treasury teams,
compliance and risk functions and business leaders must therefore work in a more
coordinated way to assess implications and support coherent decision-making.
Central to this approach is accountability. While organizations may not
be able to eliminate silos entirely, they can reduce their impact through
clearer ownership structures and stronger governance.
“The key point for me is the single point of ownership and accountability,”
he said. In practice, this means ensuring that ownership is anchored with
decision-makers
closest to risk creation, supported by appropriate governance and oversight,
so that responses are coherent and aligned to outcomes rather than fragmented
across functions.
Resilience in this context reflects how effectively firms manage
nonfinancial risk across prudential, operational and conduct dimensions, particularly
where risks interact and crystallise across organizational boundaries.
Where this is done well, resilience begins to take on the characteristics
of a strategic capability - not as a separate function, but as a reflection of
how effectively risk is integrated into strategy, culture and decision-making
