One thing that seems clear is that Mr Luzzi, a Vice President of the organisation during the mandate of outgoing President Peter den Dekker, is unlikely to have a boring time as Ferma boss, a position he will hold until the end of 2013.

In the next couple of years, European companies will have to navigate through economic and financial crises that appear to have no end in sight.

Economic uncertainties hamper their access to credit, reduce profit expectations and create plenty of other risks to be managed.

Add to that regulatory concerns ranging from a steady flow of European rules on matters like the environment or compliance, to the impact of the new Solvency II directive on the insurance industry.

At the same time, risk managers face more scrutiny from top managers and even shareholders. When that is not the case, they are urged to involve all kinds of stakeholders in the management of risks.

“Risk management is not only about preventing losses, but also taking advantage of opportunities,” Mr Luzzi told Commercial Risk Europe in an exclusive interview a few days after his election.

He and his colleagues look set to have many opportunities to test this view. But it is certainly true that current challenging times have boosted the profile of risk managers within European companies, and Ferma has helped them in this process.

One of Mr Luzzi’s goals during his presidency is to keep banging the drum. For instance, by stressing ever more forcefully the importance of implementing comprehensive ERM programmes that can help companies sail through difficult times in a more efficient way.

This is a task that many Ferma members, including Mr Luzzi himself, are well acquainted with. “We are the representatives of basically all large European companies, and our firms are working hard to develop the activities of risk management,” he said.

This is not a simple job because ERM processes worth their salt involve not only the people directly linked to risk management departments, but increasingly other sectors of companies too.

Mr Luzzi notes that the responsibilities of risk professionals are expanding well beyond dealing with insurable risks, and they often have to work with issues such as business continuity following crisis situations, compliance matters and reporting to shareholders.

As a result, the implementation of ERM policies entails a long process that involves risk managers and other top managers in their companies. When that is not the case yet, risk managers have been urged to involve other stakeholders in the process.

For Mr Luzzi, Ferma has an educational role to play in the whole effort. “We don’t want to be an education entity, but we will work ever more towards educating, training and certifying risk management professionals,” he said.

This is a reason why a breakfast with a new generation of risk managers is one of the events during the Ferma Forum that Mr Luzzi is eagerly looking forward to. “I try to give encouragement to young people about risk management,” he said.

Ferma and the national associations need to continue to actively advocate the attraction of risk management because purely educational outfits are only now really starting to focus on the subject. “We are beginning to see university courses that deal with insurance and risk management, and there are institutions that give certification or specific training,” he said.

“But most risk managers today have a formation in other areas, like business management, engineering or mathematics. Graduates must be aware that risk management is a profession that has points of contact in several areas of the company, especially now that ERM is gaining ground within companies,” said Mr Luzzi.

But Ferma also has an important job to perform as the representative of Europe’s largest buyers of insurance.

As such, Mr Luzzi stressed that the federation must continue to provide a loud voice for the buying side of the insurance market.

Ferma will therefore continue to press the views of risk managers on issues such as Solvency II. For Mr Luzzi, the new European directive, which should kick off in early 2013, brings two major concerns for the profession.

Firstly, for its possible effects on captive companies, an issue that remains not completely clear, although the new Ferma president sounds optimistic about it. “We will keep on lobbying, but I believe that things are reasonably well addressed in the captives issue,” he says.

Another worry relates to the effects of Solvency II on the overall financial health of insurers. “On the one hand, the directive aims to make sure for clients that their insurers are solvent, which is a positive thing,” he said. “But, on the other hand, there is a concern that this could promote an excessive concentration of the market,” added Mr Luzzi.

His fear, widely reverberated among insurance buyers, is that mid-sized and niche insurers could be effectively kicked out of the market by the severity of the new rules and thereby reduce the offer of insurance products and services.

“If smaller insurers go away and large companies take their place, it could have an impact on insurance prices,” Mr Luzzi said. “We are not for or against anything. But we don’t want all the costs to fall only on insurance buyers,” he explained.

In the meantime, some risks deserve the immediate attention of European companies, remarked Mr Luzzi.

The economic crisis that affects the region has had negative effects on the access to credit not only by companies themselves, but also by their suppliers and clients.

Coverages that, for similar reasons, have become even more important than usual, such as credit insurance, are harder to find at reasonable prices and conditions.

Mr Luzzi also noted that new risks have emerged, like the growth in parts of Europe of groups of organised road pirates that steal merchandise from lorries.

Another issue that will remain on Ferma’s radar is environmental legislation. “People may be talking less about this subject because of the crisis, but it requires much attention,” Mr Luzzi said. “Risk managers are involved in how companies deal with all those changes, and that is why professionalism is so important.”

There will be plenty of subjects for risk managers to talk about in Stockholm, and Mr Luzzi conceded that, in the days before the event, he was anxious about his first Forum as the boss of Ferma.

But on the other hand he was sanguine about meeting the most demanding expectations of participants. “The Forum will be a great success and will be a bonus to mark the end of Peter’s mandate in this way,” he commented.

Mr Luzzi expressed particular satisfaction with the fact that he will take over an entity which has further expanded its membership with the recent integration of Malta and Slovenia. “It is a pleasure for me to begin my mandate as president with two new members,” he said.

Mr Luzzi also brings to Ferma an impeccable international pedigree and he certainly knows a thing or two about spreading the benefits of risk management around the world.

As a risk manager at Pirelli, one of Italy’s industrial giants, Mr Luzzi has worked and lived in places such as Istanbul, Barcelona and Basel, and has been responsible for the firm’s risk management in the American and Canadian markets.

He spent 12 years as director of risk management at Pirelli’s Brazilian subsidiary, and was the first foreign-born president of ABGR, Brazil’s risk management association.

Mr Luzzi was also instrumental in the creation of Alarys, the Latin American risk management association, for which he today holds an honorary board position.

As European risk managers face a growing number of global issues, Mr Luzzi’s international experience should come in handy for Ferma and the development of the risk profession overall.

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