He says it remains a major challenge to get companies to think strategically about risk and to fully integrate risk man- agement with high standards in business practices and conduct hroughout their organizations and out into their partnership networks and supply chains. He recalls working with a company heavily dependent on its international supply chain. The firm’s executives were quite comfortable that their first tier of suppliers, their larg- est vendors, were fully compli- ant with safety controls and other specifications. However, diligence fell off substantially when it came to the second, third and fourth tiers in the network. “They just assumed everybody in the supply chain was doing everything responsi-
bly,” Ridge says.
For ratcheting up the necessary controls and mitigating po-
tential risks, the tone and commitment must start from the top
of an organization, Ridge emphasizes. And that applies re-
gardless of a firm’s scope.
“A multinational has to apply the same risk analysis through-
out the supply chain, no matter how long it is,” he asserts. “Ul-
timately, it is the corporate entity that will see its quality, brands
and profitability damaged if leaders at headquarters don’t hold
global suppliers to similar standards of excellence.”
He says legions of parts suppliers, toy manufacturers and
pet food distributors have learned lessons the hard way by pay-
ing inadequate attention to outliers, often foreign ones, in their
supply chains.
The Ridge memoir caused a stir with its criticisms of terrorism-alert practices.
South, Verizon, the Discovery Channel, Cable & Wireless and
Cox Communications.
Ridge Global’s advisory committee includes high-ranking
military retirees such as Admiral and Coast Guard Commandant Tom Collins and Army General Barry McCaffrey, as well
as Howard Schmidt, a former White House cybersecurity adviser and eBay chief information security officer who is CEO
of R&H Security Consulting.
Ridge recognizes the cultural divide between military and
corporate hierarchies: “War fighters deal with contingencies
that may be in the distant future. They don’t deal with profitability,” says Ridge. He believes he can bring the best qualities
out of both.
“I think I can make a very persuasive argument that one
of the ways a company can distinguish itself in a global marketplace is by demonstrating to its customers that it has embedded a permanent culture of security and resiliency,” says
Ridge, contending that he is predicting rather than merely
hoping that at some point in time, the value associated with a
combination of both quality and resiliency will be recognized
by Wall Street.
Appraising His Successors
The top-down imperative operates at DHS, where, Ridge says,
he sees no observable operational differences between the current and previous administrations. As Bush did, President Ba-rack Obama turned to a governor – Janet Napolitano of Arizona – to run the department. That background is especially
helpful in dealing with different government jurisidictions as
