RIMS Risk Manager of the Year, Steve Robles, Los Angeles County

May 6, 2024

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

Justin Smulison interviews RIMS Risk Manager of the Year 2024, Steve Robles, Los Angeles County. They discuss how his career progress how he negotiated a position to have a direct report to the County CEO and Board of Supervisors, as an Assistant CEO over Risk Management, and why he feels it was necessary to have a direct report with the strategic decision-maker. Steve tells of the importance of sharing knowledge with a network and how he built his coworkers to be his succession to be ready when he left. Finally, he leaves you with his advice for building your career upon your passion. Listen for wise risk management philosophy.

Key Takeaways:y

[:01] About RIMS and RIMScast.

[:14] RISKWORLD 2024 is the yv w now in San Diego, from May 5th through May 8th. Use the RIMS Events App to organize your sessions, meetings, and other fun and educational experiences at RISKWORLD.

[:30] About today's episode of RIMScast. This is a fantastic episode! I will be joined by RIMS Risk Manager of the Year 2024, Steve Robles. There's so much to discuss with him!

[:56] There's a good chance that you are listening to this episode while you are with us in sunny San Diego, California during RISKWORLD 2024. Let's start with May 6th. In the morning on the Main Stage at 8:00 a.m., we have an Opening Keynote from Peter Diamandis.

[1:14] At noon, PST, we've got the Main Stage Leadership Keynote, An Afternoon with Marlee Matlin, Academy Award-winning actress, director, and activist. The Spencer RIMS Risk Management Challenge Final Round will be held in Ballroom 6A at 1:15 p.m.

[1:34] On the morning of Tuesday, May 7th we've got the Spencer 5K Fun Run, sponsored by Sedgwick. That event will be held at 200 Marina Park Way. At 8:00 a.m., we have our Industry Breakfast Keynote from Evan Greenberg, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Chubb Limited and Chubb Group.

[1:54] On Wednesday, May 8th, at 3:00 p.m., on the Main Stage, our Conference Finale and Closing Keynote will be delivered by entrepreneur, author, TV personality, and Shark, Daymond John. Each day there will be sessions at the DE&I Studio, the Global Studio, the Innovation Hub, the Thought Leader Theater, and the Wellness Center, in addition to the breakout session rooms.

[2:21] Check out the full itinerary at RIMS.org/RISKWORLD, and the RIMS Events App. If you have any questions or want to pick up some wonderful RIMS swag, check us out at RIMS HQ.

[2:39] The RIMS Risk Manager of the Year program aims to raise the profile of the risk management profession and the outstanding programs the honorees have implemented within their organizations. The program was initiated in 1977 and the Risk Management Honor Roll was added in 1981.

[2:56] The 2024 RIMS Risk Manager of the Year is Steven Robles. Steve was recognized for his work as the Assistant CEO for the County of Los Angeles. He's featured in the special Awards Edition of RIMS Risk Management magazine. On Wednesday, May 8th, at 2:10 p.m., Steve and I will be at the Global Studio to extend this dialog.

[3:21] Right now, we're going to have a lot of fun! We're going to talk about highlights of the past year and his career and what it means to be Assistant CEO for a major county in the United States of America. RIMS Risk Manager of the Year 2024, Steven Robles, welcome to RIMSCast!

[3:56] Steve is excited to be a guest on RIMScast! Steve says it's extremely humbling to be RIMS 2024 Risk Manager of the Year. He has spent his entire career in risk management and to be honored like this is just an amazing feeling. It's wonderful to know all the people who have helped him in his career; Steve shares his award with them. We cannot do our jobs by ourselves.

[4:56] The Awards edition of Risk Management magazine has a wonderful article by Justin that details Steve's career, especially the last couple of years and his work at LA County. The article's link is in this episode's show notes.

[5:30] Steve was with San Bernardino County for almost 23 years; it was a lot of fun. He started his risk management career as a safety officer there. He worked with the Sheriff's department to ensure they were safe when they raided drug labs. He worked with all kinds of wonderful professionals. That's what got him hooked.

[6:41] The department Steve worked in at San Bernardino County was the Risk Management Department. From Safety, Steve progressed to Workers' Comp, Liability, Insurance, Indemnification, Contracts, and Finance. As he built his skill set and supervisory experience, he realized he could run the department. After 10 years, his goal was to head the department.

[8:58] Justin points out a great takeaway for the audience: Build your skill set, build your network, and when the time is right, present yourself for promotion.

[9:33] Steve's friends told him not to take the job at LA County. Steve likes to organize and he saw there was disorder to organize. In his home, he likes to do tile work. He saw the opportunity to do some good for a place that was a good fit for him. Steve loves LA County. It was a major seven-day-a-week commitment. He got his family to buy into it. Fortunately, his kids were grown.

[12:40] RIMS plug time! For RIMS Virtual Workshops, visit RIMS.org/virtualworkshops to see the full calendar. Virtual workshops are in session, beginning in June, starting with Leveraging Data and Analytics for Continuous Risk Management. That's a three-part course that begins on June 6th. We've got Fundamentals of Insurance on June 11th and 12th.

[13:03] We've got Fundamentals of Risk Management on June 18th and 19th and we've got Captives as an Alternate Risk Financing Technique on June 26th and 27th. More information about these workshops and others is on the RIMS Virtual Workshops page and a link is in this episode's show notes.

[13:20] If you attend RISKWORLD, be sure to download the RIMS Events App. This is different from the RIMS App which is available only to members. The RIMS Events App will help you keep sessions organized, take notes, communicate with other attendees, and a whole lot of other great features because there's so much happening. This is a great way to stay on schedule.

[13:58] Back to the interview! Steve describes the extremely extensive interview process for the position at LA County. The panel and questions were pretty standard about Steve's experience and philosophy on building a risk management program. Once he made the first cut, he had to interview with each elected official on the Board of Supervisors and their Chief of Staff.

[14:52] There were five Supervisors. He spent about two hours with each of them, over a week. After they approved him, he sat with the CEO. He wanted to have a direct report to the CEO. They met for about two hours. By the time he started his first day, it felt like he had worked a week.

[16:06] Steve says the CEO was great. Steve learned from the CEO during the interview that he had worked with Steve's mom in a previous job and she had trained him on a lot of things in personnel! Steve said getting to know the board members and the CEO on a human level helped him a lot. Steve told his mom and she said, "Oh I know him, tell him, Hi!"

[17:34] Justin recalls when he got an internship at a major television network because his grandmother knew the mother of the marketing director. Leverage every family connection you can! Steve's wife also has a family connection with one of the Board Supervisors and he name-dropped her as well.

[18:13] Steve is easy to get along with. He tells how that helped him to bring people along to where he wanted to go on a program or initiative. He knew he needed other people on board. He started by building a story. Risk managers need to be good storytellers. Use humor to put people at ease and allow them to share their true thoughts. A better idea may come up in discussion.

[19:40] Steve calls this conversation controlled chaos.

[20:17] Steve made privacy and cyber a top concern. These concerns went hand-in-hand. One of the issues at Los Angeles County was that their technology was extremely disjointed. Seven computer systems housed seven different data sets to administer risk management and the county council program.

[20:49] None of the systems communicated with each other but all systems had the same type of personal data and connected through the internet. That made seven different exposures. Steven developed a comprehensive system to consolidate the seven systems. Steven paid attention to the cyber aspects and privacy aspects of managing how the data got out.

[21:34] This was in 2013. Offices involved were the CEO, Health System, Jail System, Social Services System, and other county systems, which had the same challenges. Their first milestone was when they had a breach! It helped to have something occur so Steven could build from the chaos. It was a wake-up call.

[22:48] The breach springboarded the county departments to collaborate in their efforts to control cyber. Steven tells why the breach didn't threaten his job. He always says, "I don't know what's going to happen but I know we need to be prepared for something happening. And this is how we prepare for these types of things."

[24:13] That means we need to have an emergency communication policy with collaboration on handling disasters. We need to prepare for what we don't know yet. As emerging risks came up, Steve brought them up. He brought up cyber and privacy long before there was a data breach. There was an emphasis on how they would respond to it. Steve also brought up AI years ago.

[24:49] Steve doesn't know yet how AI is going to be a risk to us, but it's going to be a risk and we need to prepare for it.

[24:58] One more RIMS Plug break! Webinars! Our friends from TÜV SÜD GRC will return on May 23rd with Respond to Emerging Risks with a Winning Property Loss Control Formula. On June 6th, Evident ID makes its RIMS Webinar debut with Uncovering Hidden Risks in Your Third-Party Risk Management Program.

[25:32] On June 13th, our friends at Riskonnect return to present Unlocking the Value of Business Continuity and Insurable Risk Management. That's a great line-up for the next couple of months! Register at RIMS.org/Webinars. Registration is complimentary for RIMS members!

[25:51] The RIMS ERM Conference 2024 will be held on November 18th and 19th in Boston, Massachusetts. RIMS continues to present the best conference agenda by featuring the most engaged and knowledgeable risk professionals leading the discussions.

[26:07] RIMS wants to hear from you. Submit your session today. We've extended the deadline! A link is in this episode's show notes. The best submissions will address current and future issues facing ERM practitioners and provide takeaways for an audience of risk professionals, business leaders, students, governmental officers, legal professionals, and more.

[26:29] You must keep it relevant to ERM and Strategic Enterprise Risk Management. Remember, product sales pitches are not acceptable nor appropriate as part of the RIMS ERM Conference Education Program.

[26:50] Back to the interview with RIMS Risk Manager of the Year 2024, Steve Robles! Cyber and privacy kind of define the challenges of Los Angeles County because it's so big. The size of the organization is the challenge. There are 100K employees and a county budget of $46 billion. All that money is being spent somewhere. When money is being spent, a risk is associated with it.

[27:36] The risk could be where to invest the money without losing it, to the costs of deploying staff. When you see analytics pointing to some future risks, how do you get the channel open to communicate it to the right people and get their buy-in to deploy risk prevention tactics?

[28:38] Steve connected to his risk professional counterparts in other counties. He would call his counterparts in Orange County, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernadino, San Francisco, and other counties around. "Have you seen this trend?" or "I think we've got fraud here, what do you guys think and what have you done about it?" They would share information on many topics.

[29:17] If it was in LA County, either other counties saw it first or they were trying to find out how LA County dealt with it. Steve would tap into his network of public sector risk professionals that went back to San Bernadino and the subject matter experts the county employed. He has known them for decades. They learned at the same time with different views of the same experience.

[30:19] It broadens you to meet with other risk managers who came up through different paths and have different viewpoints that enrich you if you take in that information so you can make good executive decisions.

[31:05] Steve had the greatest of all worlds at LA County because he had a great direct reporting relationship with the CEO and Board of Supervisors. He sees that other public sector entities do not have the same relationship between the risk managers and the CEOs. They report to a lower-level manager or human resources.

[31:38] Risk management should be a strategic partnership for the direction of the organization and the person you report to should have a direct influence on how that strategy moves forward.

[32:21] Steve's former coworkers were his succession. Every year in LA County, Steve brought his staff together to help put together the strategic initiative. It brought them together as a team and they enriched each others' knowledge base. As time progressed, many of them became qualified in all aspects of risk management. Steve was planning his succession from Day 1.

[33:26] Now, LA County has an interim risk manager, Destiny Castro, who was Steve's operations manager. What Steve told Destiny is "You can do this job. What you'll be surprised by is how fast things come at you. They come at you fast and there's not really a day off! You're the decision-maker."

On May 8th, at 2:10 p.m., please go over to the Global Studio and check out RIMScast Live for a special session with RIMS Risk Manager of the Year 2024, Steve Robles. Steve received the award for his fantastic work with LA County. We will discuss his career and we will give all of you a chance to ask him anything that's on your mind.

[34:40] Steve has participated in a lot of the events of the RIMS LA Chapter. It's not just public entities there; it's rewarding to see so many perspectives represented by private entities. Steve feels relaxed there with his clan who share his experiences. There are good side discussions that go on with the vendors as well as the members.

[35:50] Steve has spoken at some universities that have either established or up-and-coming risk and safety programs they are trying to expand. The students are fantastic and have great questions. Steve explains that risk management is not insurance; it's exciting. Anything bad you see in the news, you're a part of it!

[37:28] Steve's advice for the next generation of risk managers: "Have a clear career path. Find your passion; what you're passionate about is where you should go. There are so many different directions you can go in risk management. My passion was organizing the mess; I wanted a position where I could put those pieces together. But there's so much more you can do."

[38:02] "If you like contracts or if you like dealing with the human aspect of it you can go into claims. You take your personality and understand yourself and then find something that fosters that in your risk management career."

[38:41] Steve says to enjoy yourself. Look at challenges as a game, as a chess match. Something is happening on the right side of the board and you need to position yourself to corner that risk, person, or whatever. It calms you down so you can think clearly about the steps that are going to be needed to win that game.

[39:28] Steve, I want to congratulate you again on being named RIMS Risk Manager of the Year 2024. Do you have your speech prepared? (Steve is ready!) We're going to see you onstage on the morning of May 6th and spread the love!

[39:58] Special thanks again to RIMS Risk Manager of the Year 2024 Steve Robles for joining us. Steve and I will lead a RIMScast Live session on Wednesday, May 8th at 2:10 p.m. in the Global Studio during RISKWORLD. Come and ask the Risk Manager of the Year your burning question! A link to the RIMS Risk Management Magazine Awards Edition is in this episode's show notes.

[40:25] Registered attendees for RISKWORLD should use the RIMS Events App. That will get you where you need to go when you're at RISKWORLD.

[40:32] RIMS Plug Time again! Go to the App Store and download the RIMS App. This is an exclusive members-only benefit with all sorts of RIMS resources and coverage. It's different from the RIMS Events App. Everybody loves the RIMS App!

[41:05] You can sponsor a RIMScast episode for this, our weekly show, or a dedicated episode. Links to sponsored episodes are in our show notes. RIMScast has a global audience of risk and insurance professionals, legal professionals, students, business leaders, C-Suite executives, and more. Let's collaborate! Contact pd@rims.org for more information.

[41:48] 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.

[42:06] 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.

[42:22] 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. Justin Smulison is the Business Content Manager at RIMS. You can email Justin at Content@RIMS.org.

[42:43] Thank you for your continued support and engagement on social media channels! We appreciate all your kind words. Listen every week! Stay safe!

Mentioned in this Episode:

RISKWORLD 2024 — San Diego, CA | May 5–8, 2024 — Visit the Global Studio May 8 at 2:10 pm PST for RIMScast Live! with Steven Robles and Justin Smulison

RISKWORLD Pre-Conference Workshops

RISKWORLD Speakers

NEW FOR MEMBERS! RIMS Mobile App

RIMS DEI Council

Spencer Educational Foundation — Grants Page

RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP)

RIMS-CRMP Virtual Workshops

RIMS ERM Conference 2024 — Nov 18-19 — Boston, MA — Call For Session Submissions by May 13.

RIMS Risk Management Awards Edition 2024

Spencer-RIMS Risk Management Challenge — Live at RISKWORLD

RIMS Webinars:

Respond to Emerging Risks with this Winning Property Loss Control Formula | Sponsored by TÜV SÜD GRC| May 23, 2024