Energizing ERM with Kellee Ann Richards-St. Clair

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Kellee Ann's Risk Journey and Energy Background

Justin asks Kellee Ann about her risk career beginnings; she explains her chemistry background, master's thesis on ERM, and entry into energy risk.

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Episode notes

Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.

In this episode, Justin interviews Kellee Ann Richards-St. Clair, the Vice President, Commercial, Phoenix Park Energy Marketing Limited. Justin and Kellee Ann discuss her target risk career starting in her undergraduate days studying chemistry, to her role as VP of Commercial for a gas supply organization. She describes the range of responsibilities she carries. Kellee Ann also speaks of her presence at the upcoming RIMS ERM Conference 2025 on November 17th and 18th in Seattle, Washington.

Listen for understanding about the complexity and interconnectivity of risks in ERM.

Key Takeaways:

[:01] About RIMS and RIMScast.

[:17] About this episode of RIMScast. Our guest is Kellee Ann Richards-St. Clair. She is the Vice President of Commercial at Phoenix Park Energy Marketing Limited, and a member of the RIMS Strategic and Enterprise Risk Management Council. There is much to discuss with her! But first…

[:47] The next RIMS-CRMP-FED Virtual Workshop will be held on November 11th and 12th and led by Joseph Mayo. Links to these courses can be found through the Certifications page of RIMS.org and through this episode's show notes.

[1:07] RIMS Virtual Workshops! RIMS has launched a new course, "Intro to ERM for Senior Leaders." It will be held again on November 4th and 5th and will be led by Elise Farnham.

[1:21] On November 11th and 12th, Chris Hansen will lead "Fundamentals of Insurance". It features everything you've always wanted to know about insurance but were afraid to ask. Fear not; ask Chris Hansen! RIMS members always enjoy deep discounts on the virtual workshops!

[1:40] The full schedule of virtual workshops can be found on the RIMS.org/education and RIMS.org/education/online-learning pages. A link is also in this episode's notes.

[1:51] RIMS Webinars! On November 6th, HUB will present "Geopolitical Whiplash — Building Resilient Global Risk Programs in an Unstable World". That session will be moderated by Christina Howard, our guest from last week. Register at RIMS.org/Webinars.

[2:08] The RIMS ERM Conference 2025 will be on November 17th and 18th in Seattle, Washington. The agenda is live, and the link is available in this episode's show notes.

[2:20] That brings us to today's guest, Kellee Ann Richards-St. Clair. She is the Vice President of Commercial at Phoenix Park Energy Marketing Limited, a U.S. subsidiary of Phoenix Park Gas Processors, LLC.

[2:35] We're going to learn all about oil, gas, and the energy sector and how it intertwines with ERM. In addition, Kellee Ann will be making her RIMS ERM Conference debut!

[2:48] Kellee Ann will be highly visible, especially on November 18th, when she leads the ERM Networking Breakfast, the Conference Finale Panel, and the recently added session at 1:30 p.m. on the 18th, "Exploiting Uncertainty: Making the Business Case for Strategic Risk Treatments."

[3:09] That session was added after we recorded this interview, which is why we do not discuss it. Kellee Ann has a fascinating career and background. Between that and her presence at the ERM Conference, she's a wonderful guest, and I'm so glad we had this interview!

[3:23] On with the show! Let's get to it!

[3:25] Interview! Kellee Ann Richards-St. Clair, welcome to RIMScast!

[3:34] Kellee Ann Richards-St. Clair, it's a pleasure to finally have you on our show!

[3:43] Kellee Ann is a relatively new member of the RIMS Strategic and Enterprise Risk Management Council. She will be at the RIMS ERM Conference on November 17th and 18th. She will lead the ERM Networking Breakfast Tabletop Discussions.

[4:12] Kellee Ann has a fascinating career, and she works in a unique sector. She's an energy sector professional and works in the oil and gas industry. The key to her embarking on the risk journey was when she did her Master's in Project Management.

[4:36] One of the areas was Project Risk Management, to which Kellee Ann had a great affinity. She liked the analytical thinking that goes behind assessing what could likely impact your project.

[4:53] Also, the accountability and ownership that goes into the planning phase, making sure that you're thinking of everything that could go wrong, as a means of making sure that you're achieving your objectives.

[5:05] In 2004, Kellee Ann wrote her thesis on implementing enterprise risk management practices into private sector organizations.

[5:15] It honed the tools she would use in project risk management with the greater goal of having a large impact on the organization, by impacting strategy and strategy delivery.

[5:33] From there, Kellee Ann participated in risk committees in her organization and other organizations, helping them push the risk agenda and making sure they have the right mindset that allows them to make sure that they are achieving their business mandates.

[5:59] Kellee Ann always intended to work in the energy sector in oil and gas. Her undergraduate degree is in chemistry. She always liked understanding how things are made and how they function. In the energy space, many of the operations are rooted in chemistry.

[6:22] Kellee Ann speaks of the business component of getting the molecules out to market. ERM meshes with her affinity for chemistry, risk management, business, analytical thinking, and understanding how your business model functions and what could likely impact it.

[7:13] Kellee Ann has managed project risk registers for her department, on the commercial side. She is always risk-focused, identifying any threats to the business and incorporating that into contract negotiations, and how she liaises with her stakeholders and customers.

[7:41] For Kellee Ann, it was a perfect match, meshing her passion and her job responsibility. In the risk management profession, you get to have a direct impact on the success or failure of your business.

[8:03] Kellee Ann is based in Houston with Phoenix Park Energy Marketing Limited, the U.S. subsidiary of Phoenix Park Gas Processors LLC, which is located in Trinidad and Tobago. It's a natural gas processing facility.

[8:23] Kellee Ann leads the commercial function of Phoenix Park Energy Marketing Limited. The energy sector is dynamic, impacted by geopolitics, the volatility of market prices, and even other industries, and the investments they make.

[8:37] For example, AI requires lots of power to run. For AI development to be successful means heavily investing in power. That's likely to have an impact on commodity prices. Everything is interconnected.

[8:52] Interconnected risk is a current process in terms of managing the complexity of the current business environment. The energy sector becomes a good proxy for how you manage complex operations and still run a profitable business, fulfilling its purpose and mission.

[9:16] Kellee Ann's mental model of risk management is prudent decision-making. You have to be able to justify to the shareholders that you are leading the organization in the right direction and prove the thinking behind what you are recommending.

[9:42] You have to demonstrate the value proposition: This is what will prevent me from implementing my mission, and this is what I'm going to put in place.

[9:51] Even though this is preventing a threat, these are the opportunities I'm seeing out of it. This is how I can move the needle a little further, because I'm looking at it from a holistic perspective. I'm no longer looking at it as a separate function. It becomes good business.

[10:16] Kellee Ann is not functionally in charge of commercial. She is in charge of the strategic aspects of it. The Risk Management Department focuses on the operational aspects of the business and also feeds in strategic elements.

[10:29] Kellee Ann has incorporated ERM into her lifestyle because of her subject matter expertise. She has gotten the opportunity to lecture on enterprise risk management and offer consultancy for private sector organizations that are early adopters in terms of risk maturity.

[10:49] Kellee Ann considers that she has a broad experience in risk management, leveraging the tools in each of her job responsibilities.

[11:05] Kellee Ann is over enterprise risk management from a strategic perspective. She has a high-level view of all risks likely to impact operations. She ensures that all risk mitigations are in place and makes sure she is exploiting all opportunities the organization would like to embrace.

[11:31] There is enterprise risk management expertise within the organization, focused on the functional perspective, while Kellee Ann focuses on the strategic perspective, looking at emerging risks and how they impact the business and the marketability of the product.

[11:49] Kellee Ann also looks at what areas of opportunity it opens up for her in terms of making an impact on the customers.

[11:58] Kellee Ann is Vice President of Commercial. There is a separate Risk Management Department. They work together regularly. Kellee Ann tells how risks are managed functionally and strategically, and that employees have toolkits to distill information for prudent decisions.

[12:36] Quick Break! The RIMS CRO Certificate Program in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management is our live virtual program led by the famous James Lam. Great news! A third cohort has been announced, from January through March 2026!

[12:57] Registration closes January 5th. Enroll now. A link is in this episode's show notes.

[13:06] Save the dates March 18th and 19th, 2026, for The RIMS Legislative Summit, which will be held in Washington, D.C.

[13:14] Join us in Washington, D.C., for two days of Congressional Meetings, networking, and advocating on behalf of the risk management community. Visit RIMS.org/Advocacy for more information and updates and to register.

[13:28] We've got more plugs later. Let's return to our interview with Kellee Ann Richards-St. Clair!

[13:48] When communicating risks and opportunities to executive leadership, instead of charts, Kellee Ann utilizes storytelling to create a more compelling description of what is happening in the market or external environment and how it's going to impact the organization.

[14:08] Kellee Ann says there has to be a balance between the quantitative and the qualitative.

[14:12] You have to communicate in a way that demonstrates the business case for taking a particular action, whether or not you want to enter a new market, market new commodities, or introduce new technology.

[14:24] All of that is likely to introduce risks, either from a threat perspective or an opportunity perspective. You want to be able to have the conversation in a way that everybody understands, everyone is on the same wavelength, and understands why this direction has to be taken.

[14:40] This is important in terms of culture building. You want to have a culture of risk management. You want to have a culture where everyone is aware that you're not making decisions by intuition, feeling, or personal bias, but that decisions are driven by data.

[15:00] Context matters. Storytelling is what is going to make that context clearer.

[15:05] Kellee Ann asks, if you decide by going with your gut, you might be lucky, but how do you defend it if your luck runs out? It's very important to be emotionless in decisions. The data has to tell the story. You want to marry the data with the context.

[15:51] Global current events can be brought into the discussion if they are materially in context. In risk management, it's very important to determine the impact they are likely to have on the organization. It brings to the forefront the question of relevance.

[16:09] News is important for information, from the point of view of awareness. You want to distill the news in the context of relevance to your organization. There will be some events where your competitors are taking a particular action successfully.

[16:26] They may be successful because their business model is designed in a way that allows them to capture that opportunity faster. If you take a copy-and-paste approach, you may find that you're not going to be successful because your supply chain or context is different.

[16:43] A snippet of it may be relevant, but you have to redesign it, looking at your internal resources or the eternal context.

[16:53] You have to map it to internal resources to determine whether or not this is going to have a high impact on your organization, whether or not it's good to know, or whether or not it's to be monitored to determine when is the right time for you to implement it.

[17:07] Kellee Ann says the complexity comes in distilling what it is, if it is relevant, and the timing of that relevance.

[17:18] Kellee Ann is more inclined to work just in time rather than be tied to arbitrary deadlines that do not add value. This comes from her project management background. What are your business drivers? What are the regulatory deadlines? What is the customer expecting?

[18:50] The art and science of risk management.

[21:26] One Final Break! Some of you may have heard he recent RIMScast episode sponsored by Diligent, "Mastering ERM: Leveraging Internal and External Risk Factors," with Jason Venner, who's also a RIMS-CRMP-FED holder.

[21:41] Jason is joining us here on RIMScast to discuss his upcoming appearance at the RIMS ERM Conference 2025, which will be held on November 17th and 18th. We will be seeing him present on Tuesday, November 18th.

[21:58] His session is titled, "Benchmarking Beyond Boundaries: Elevating ERM Programs with External Risk Insights." Jason, welcome back to RIMScast! Tell us all about it!

[22:08] Jason says, We're going to be joined by one of our partners, my colleague and friend, Maurice Crescenzi, an industry practice leader at Moody's, in Risk Analytics.

[22:22] The audience is going to learn about the value of being able to benchmark your risk information and data against your peers, competitors, and suppliers to be able to provide your leadership and board with a single, clear view of holistic risk, internally and externally.

[22:40] This session provides the external viewpoint.

[22:51] Jason encourages audience participation and will be available for questions afterward, for as long as anyone needs. He is super excited to get to this conference! Several of his colleagues from Diligent are going to be there, along with Maurice and some of his colleagues.

[23:05] If you don't catch Jason after the session, please stop by the Diligent booth. He'll talk for as long as you want. We'll see you there!

[23:15] Thank you, Jason. I look forward to seeing you there. As we said, remember to look for the link in this episode's show notes to Jason's recent RIMScast appearance on mastering ERM.

[23:28] Let's Conclude Our Interview with Kellee Ann Richards-St. Clair!

[23:51] Kellee Ann describes business risks. You want to get away from siloed thinking. Risk management tends to create siloes of functional, financial, and operational risks. You have to look at it all as business risks.

[24:38] There's liability. You have to pay out claims, or there's an impairment to your reputation, either losing the customer trust to operate, or shareholders withdrawing their cash. It starts with reframing. Kellee Ann speaks of environmental risk and supply chain resilience.

[25:39] If you are a coffee supplier, what is the risk if you lose access to coffee plantations? The cost of supply increases. The quantity of produce is no longer there due to climate change.

[26:09] There are aspects of human rights. Are you procuring employees in a fair and just manner? Are the work conditions safe? It's a business risk if people leave because they are not safe. The conversation has to be reframed in terms of how you are identifying risk.

[27:06] Environmental risks can be greater and more material than operational risks.

[27:42] About ESG Governance. Planetary boundaries are not anecdotal or a special-interest topic. They have to be part of the risk conversation about your risk capacity. Kellee shares an example about shipping through port facilities. Map your risks, global to internal.

[30:13] Kellee Ann explains further about climate risks, resources, and geopolitical sensitivities.

[31:59] Looking at the agenda of the ERM Conference 2025, Kellee Ann is starting and closing our day on Tuesday, November 18th. She'll be supervising the ERM Networking Breakfast Tabletop Discussion. There will be discussions at each table, and you are encouraged to join in.

[32:32] Kellee Ann will be leading off the topic on Emerging Risks. She'll be interested to find out from her peers who will be on the table for their views on Emerging Risks and the tools they use to identify and manage emerging risks in their organizations.

[33:02] At the end of the day, at 3:30 p.m., Kellee Ann will be part of the ERM Conference Finale, SERMC Panel Discussion, along with other members of the RIMS SERMC Council, to recap some of the Conference highlights, observations, and new information.

[33:24] Kellee Ann is excited to be onstage with the others, gain new insights, and share her perspective on what she learned at the Conference. Kellee is comfortable onstage.

[33:44] Justin says it will be a new way for us to close out the Conference. I'm very much looking forward to it and to meeting you in person, as well.

[34:05] The RIMS ERM Conference has been on Kellee Ann's wish list for a while, and she's made it happen this year.

[34:22] I look forward to seeing you on November 17th and 18th at the RIMS ERM Conference 2025, in Seattle, Washington.

[34:37] Special thanks again to Kellee Ann Richards-St. Clare for joining us here on RIMScast. She will be omnipresent at the RIMS ERM Conference 2025, November 17th and 18th, and especially on the 18th. She'll be helping to kick off that Breakfast Networking Session.

[34:54] And then at 1:30, she was recently added to the new session, "Exploiting Uncertainty: Making the Business Case for Strategic Risk Treatments." That was added after this interview was recorded.

[35:05] Of course, Kellee Ann will be on the panel closing out the Conference, during the Finale, so be sure to stop by, say hello, and tell her that you heard her fabulous interview on RIMScast!

[35:18] Plug Time! You can sponsor a RIMScast episode for this, our weekly show, or a dedicated episode. Links to sponsored episodes are in the show notes.

[35:46] RIMScast has a global audience of risk and insurance professionals, legal professionals, students, business leaders, C-Suite executives, and more. Let's collaborate and help you reach them! Contact pd@rims.org for more information.

[36:03] Become a RIMS member and get access to the tools, thought leadership, and network you need to succeed. Visit RIMS.org/membership or email membershipdept@RIMS.org for more information.

[36:20] Risk Knowledge is the RIMS searchable content library that provides relevant information for today's risk professionals. Materials include RIMS executive reports, survey findings, contributed articles, industry research, benchmarking data, and more.

[36:36] For the best reporting on the profession of risk management, read Risk Management Magazine at RMMagazine.com. It is written and published by the best minds in risk management.

[36:50] Justin Smulison is the Business Content Manager at RIMS. Please remember to subscribe to RIMScast on your favorite podcasting app. You can email us at Content@RIMS.org.

[37:01] Practice good risk management, stay safe, and thank you again for your continuous support!

Links:

RIMS ERM Conference 2025 — Nov. 17‒18 | Register Now

RIMS-CRO Certificate Program In Advanced Enterprise Risk Management | Jan.‒March 2026 Cohort | Led by James Lam

RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy | RIMS Legislative Summit SAVE THE DATE — March 18‒19, 2026

RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP)

The Strategic and Enterprise Risk Center

RIMS Diversity Equity Inclusion Council

RIMS Risk Management magazine | Contribute

RIMS Now

RIMS Professional Report: "Understanding Interconnected Risks"

Upcoming RIMS Webinars: