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Vice President of Risk Management and Development Accounting
Noble House Hotels & Resorts
Bellevue, Wash.

Risk manager at smaller company employs technology even the bigger boys might not have.

Janette Ament-Pierce is vice president of risk management and development accounting for Noble House Hotels & Resorts, a smaller sized hospitality organization with 14 high-end properties in the United States. You might not be familiar with her name or her company's name, but that's probably because Ament-Pierce has been too busy turning the company's risk management program into something any Fortune 500 organization would salivate after.

At the center of the program is an integrated risk management Web site that Ament-Pierce has meticulously implemented and overseen. For use by hotel operational staff, management and outside vendors, the system is integrated with an Aon RMIS system and also includes immediate claims reporting and tracking features, best practice measurements, loss results by hotel and department, a risk management library and training materials, and disaster preparedness information, among other things.

In short, it's overflowing with data and information. It's got both push and pull communication capabilities, with monthly and quarterly reports coming out from Ament-Pierce to the field and the field sending back in information, explained her broker Wes Brandt of Arthur J. Gallagher.

Brandt recalled showing the site to one veteran loss control expert, whose response was: "That's freaking incredible."

Large hospitality and other companies might have similar Web-based sites, but it's not the technology that matters, it's what you do with it. Ament-Pierce uses the site to demonstrate how she feels about her job--that "I'm always here for the hotel," as she put it. That passion is contagious, and staff at the properties dive into the site, train with it, check their claims numbers with it and compete to do better next time against other properties.

"Every single day of the week, we can see what each of us is doing," said Ament-Pierce.

Chad Levine of Aon Risk Services, the full account executive for the RMIS piece, explained how Ament-Pierce is using his product "to her advantage to put every one of her properties on the same playing field."

"It's all about the properties. Let's make sure they have the tools they need," he said, summing up her vision.

Not even large accounts with 15 to 20 times the number of claims as Noble House get that usage at the ground level, reported Shannon Etter, senior account exec with Ament-Pierce's TPA, Broadspire.

"She is a great innovator for technology and for putting information at people's fingertips," Etter said. "She does the things the big boys should be doing but are not."

Greg Champion, president of Noble House, noted how Ament-Pierce has integrated herself into the day-to-day operations, from their hotels in California, Rhode Island, Key West and all points in between.

Insurance, loss control, risk management--"She's made it a part of our culture in our company," Champion said. "She's taken it to the point where the responsibility overall rests with her, but she turns the responsibility back onto the properties."

Her strategy and technological tools have won over skeptics like Ron Vuy, general manager at Laplaya Beach Resort in Naples, Fla.

After working with her for more than two years, he can say, "Of all the home office support I get, she's probably No. 1 on my list."

He knows Ament-Pierce is there to help him resolve issues that come up in workers' comp and customer accidents in a professional manner with the company's interests in mind.

"Janette is the bridge between the property and the technical side of it that allows us to do that," he said.

--By Matthew Brodsky

Not to toot the Risk Innovator/Responsibility Leader horn, but after Janette Ament-Pierce earns the recognition she deserves here, she will garner more and more attention as the years go on. It's not because of this award. It's because she is a role model for risk managers everywhere with limited resources at smaller companies.

"I like to use her as an example when my clients look for ways to improve their technology," said Shannon Etter, senior account exec with Ament-Pierce's TPA, Broadspire.

She's worked virtually alone since she started on the job about four years ago, with the exception of help from a corporate trainer. And she's built up the risk management program at an employer of 3,000 to match companies with 70,000 employees.

Her boss and Noble House President Greg Champion has worked for the big boys of the hospitality industry, as have his staff, and so he can say about his larger competitors, "They might want some of what we have."

Vice President, Risk Management
Harrah's Entertainment Inc.
Memphis, Tenn.

Adjectives like "elite" and italicized emphasis still suit one of risk management's top personalities.

Lance J. Ewing, vice president, risk management, Harrah's Entertainment Inc., has already earned so much in his career. He's been risk manager of the year and president of RIMS, he has a scholarship named after him with the National Alliance, he's been named one of the top 100 most influential financial people. So why does one more magazine need to give him one more accolade? Because Ewing keeps delivering. He has no choice but continue to deliver, considering what's been going on in the last few years at his employer, Harrah's.

"He seems to find himself in some really challenging risk management situations, and he always seems to come up with the right solutions, the right mix of people to come up with the solutions," said John Bullock, president of Willis of Mississippi Inc. and broker for the Harrah's account.

As some of you might have heard, Harrah's suffered one of the largest one-two punches from the 2005 hurricane tandem of Katrina and Rita, a claim of monstrous proportions. In the past year, Ewing and his team were able to settle the Katrina claim in full, making it one of the, if not the, largest settled Katrina claim to date.

"The fact that he got a claim of that magnitude paid to the satisfaction to his shareholders was a feather in his cap," said Bullock, adding that no courtrooms were involved either. "Insurance done well is a good thing."

While this "distraction" of a hurricane claim lingered through 2007, Ewing dealt with a more monumental event, something that truly affected Harrah's on an existential level: a private-equity buyout approaching the $20 billion magnitude that closed in January 2008 as scheduled.

"As scheduled" was key. Ewing had a hand in that--again, perhaps the hand. Remember, the credit markets are crunched. Bankers are just looking for excuses to pull out of deals. In order to consummate the Harrah's buyout in such a tough financial time, the company leaned on Ewing to re-evaluate Harrah's risk management and insurance buying, reanalyze and restructure its business insurance portfolio to make the lenders happy.

"An integral piece of the whole deal was insurance," said Bullock. "Had it not gotten done, the deal would have closed."

Ewing shared details. He recalled the "quick, down and dirty executive summaries" his team had to produce on the spot to make presentations to lenders and private-equity folks. The $250 million in additional wind coverage he had to acquire for properties in Atlantic City, N.J. The additional $1 billion in terrorism cover and $300 million to $400 million in additional property placements. The 400 certificates of insurance he had to have issued. How he had to make lenders understand all of Harrah's limits and extended his crisis management team to them so they could understand its role. How the lenders hired their own insurance consultants, while Harrah's hired their own.

"I was the conductor with the baton with the thrown-together rock band, jazz band, rap band, and for good measure, a swing band," he said. "You had to be innovative, you had to be creative and you had to be conciliatory to get the job done."

Ewing doesn't see himself as a hero for pulling it all off within a timeframe of Dec. 1 to Jan. 28, with the trifecta of holidays--Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years--spent on the job, while his staff was being downsized from 26 to 11 employees.

"I was very grateful to be presented with the challenge," he said. "It helped raise the visibility of our department within the organization, as well as to the board level."

That answer precludes any of your questions of how just one man can accomplish so much. He has big people behind him, including the senior management at Harrah's.

Part of it has been selling them on enterprise risk management. For all of the tactical big projects he's tackled, two-thirds of Ewing's job is day-to-day plowing forward toward strategic goals. The Harrah's ERM program is in its second year, and Ewing has carried out heat maps to ensure that everyone in the organization, from the board through management through to the pit bosses and janitors, is getting on the same page in terms of top risks standing potentially in Harrah's way.

It helped Ewing had Bullock and even bigger fish in the insurance world getting his back as well. "When it comes to business, he likes to deal with people that can make things happen," said Mario Vitale, deputy CEO at Zurich. "He likes to move and shake at the speed he's accustomed to."

There's Don Bailey, CEO for Willis North America, who's on the record saying such things as, "Lance has made me and Willis a better broker." He explains how Lance year after year attempts to make his own program "obsolete," and in the process, he expects the best out of everyone around him.

"What was done last year, what always has been done, is not a standard in Lance's mind for what should be done this year," Bailey said.

--By Matthew Brodsky

Senior Vice President, Risk Management
Hilton Hotels Corp.
Beverly Hills, Calif.

Hotel risk manager wields rare property placement to lead company toward future.

David Little has perhaps had more time on his job than other Risk Innovators to make an impact on his company and his profession. He's been with Hilton Hotels Corp. for more than 19 years. Recently promoted to senior vice president of risk management, though, Little's greatest accomplishments have come within the last couple years.

It was in February 2006, after all, that HHC bought Hilton International, transforming itself from a smaller North American hospitality operation into a global phenomenon with more than $8.14 billion in revenues.

When the smoke cleared, Little was left with a vastly changed playing field to operate upon. Before the Hilton International acquisition, it's estimated that his total cost of risk was $84.6 million. After, it approached $140 million.

"Overnight, he added 75 countries to his responsibilities," said Reiner Braun, managing director at Marsh.

Little didn't simply slap two programs into one to get the best value for his corporation. About 85 percent of that $140 million is lumped into three areas: global property, OCIPs for Hilton's timeshare business and workers' comp. Little tackled all three.

He implemented an owner controlled insurance program for Hilton Grand Vacation Club.

For the workers' comp exposure involving 58,000 employees and an estimated 40 percent of total cost of risk, Little brought in a new TPA (SRS), explored the possibility of an integrated disability plan, and went global with loss control and health measures, assessing and benchmarking as he went. His excellent team-building abilities helped to make this possible.

"It is very hard to control the hotels out there," said Braun, "so when it comes to loss control measures, you need to do a lot of convincing to get people to spend the money."

HHC's new property exposure represented about $21.8 billion in values in 684 locations, 75 countries and 35 U.S. states.

Little broke down the values by layer, by country and state. He split properties into catastrophe- and non-CAT--a two-towers approach not used by anyone save one other global hotel company.

Braun said that it's been the most complex property program to place and manage throughout the year in his 19 years in the business because of the sheer number of locations and size of some of the locations.

But it works because it caters to the appetites of the carriers, provides homogeneity of price for non-CAT hotels that didn't want to subsidize their brethren in Florida or California, and takes the guessing out of allocating premium for CAT-prone areas, according to Braun.

All this was done, mind you, in the post-Katrina, catastrophe-crazy environment. As recounted by Braun, Little had to line up every property insurance company in the world to pull it off.

"Dave was driving it," said Braun. He has such connections with the international underwriting community, cultivated over the last two decades, that he has the credibility to get their buy-in on Hilton's story. "People always go the extra mile for Dave," said Braun.

All the more amazing because Little had to call on them again when Blackstone Group bought out Hilton in October 2007 for $20-plus billion.

The lending rules required that Little have absolutely no holes in his two property towers, that he increase his overall wind and terror cover, and that all carriers involved have a certain rating--"100 percent insurance at almost any cost," Braun said. Mid-year, Little had to enhance certain carriers' credits with fronting companies. The whole process has become a yearlong endeavor.

"It never dies," said Little.

What's his secret? One thing Little pointed to is data, along with his obsessive collection of it. Why?

"So we can actually go out and control our own destiny," he said. "I knew many, many years ago if you don't have the ability to control your data, then you're lost."

But another secret are the people around him. "I'll put my team up against anybody," he said.

That team must also include senior management, who have come to value and grasp Little's impact.

His direct supervisor, David Thompson, senior vice president and controller, said, "He's helped to lead us through a lot of change on risk management," adding that the new CEO has a "like mind" as Little's when it comes to ERM and that the new board "view risk as an important part of the equation."

--By Matthew Brodsky

Risk Manager
H&S Ventures LLC
Corona del Mar, Calif.

Risk manager shows company how it's done with a focus on safety, loss control and responsible risk transfer.

Few people do what Paul Vogelgesang does. And even fewer did his exact job before him. Make that zero. Vogelgesang came into his role as risk manager at H&S Ventures two years ago as the company's first ever. He's used the clean slate opportunity to tackle some of the company's glaring risk management issues in creative, direct ways.

H&S Ventures owns and operates a total of 30 different LLCs, operations such as the NHL's Anaheim Ducks, the Honda Center where the team games occur (along with countless other events), the Anaheim Ice training facility and ice rink, and a medical research organization called the Samueli Institute. It's a mixed bag, and Vogelgesang buys the insurance for all of it--113 policies in total. But that's what an everyday kind of risk manager is supposed to do, right?

Where Vogelgesang's value comes into play is how he's shown top management--every employee with the 30 LLCs really--how risk management should be done, thinking like a good hockey player. He aims for where the puck will be, not where it's at now.

"He's a very proactive risk manager," Vogelgesang said he would want others to say about himself.

Vogelgesang has managed to get the senior management team to explore their options in the DIC market for earthquake cover, where before earthquakes insurance was not a topic for discussion. He's brought them up to speed on alternative risk and has implemented a feasibility review on a captive, which could be in place in the next six to nine months.

While alternatives are being explored, Vogelgesang has translated the soft market into the best property program he could for his company--the best 18-month program that is. He's got rates and conditions locked in for a near two-year term with both primary carrier Travelers and excess carrier AIG.

"We have that firm," Vogelgesang said.

"For the policy periods 07-08 and 08-09, Paul has locked in a two-year fee structure with all of Anaheim Arena Management's carriers--ensuring stable costs for the two-year period," said Angela Wergechik, vice president of finance center at the Honda Center.

This sort of success, rare even in a soft market, comes in part because he's been committed to loss control at the Honda Center, one of H&S Venture's prized jewels, according to Greg Roblek, managing director of Travelers national property practice. Vogelgesang brought in a fire and life safety consulting to evaluate all seven levels of the arena, which helped him to uncover areas that needed corrections--such as a potential terrorism exposure. In one example, with Vogelgesang's efforts, the Honda Center got government funding to install an anti-vehicle barrier system that hydraulically lifts to prevent access.

"I have not heard or seen of that in prior experiences," said Roblek.

But perhaps where Vogelgesang has shown his big league skills is his ability to envisage and implement a companywide safety program in his short tenure. He's pulled together such tactics as an illumination study for the arena and air quality and heat stress testing.

It's a matter of being field oriented, Vogelgesang said, so that he's gotten to know everyone, from the CEOs to the janitors.

"I really need them to be my eyes and ears," he said. "By sitting at a desk, you can't really do that."

He's made sure that at every site he has folks who understand what his objectives are, whether it's the administrative person in HR dealing with his workers' comp program or the general managers who must lead by example with their own buy-in.

Or perhaps it's the senior management whose buy-in has been most significant. Vogelgesang explained that folks who used to do his job part time, like the controller, are still around. So they can appreciate what's he's done in terms of innovations, implementations, filling gaps in their program.

Kevin Guilbert, client advisor at Marsh, admires how Vogelgesang has the luxury of reporting to top people.

"Now that Paul's there, they're very appreciative," the broker said. "They get it: The end result is not only cost savings, but a safer work environment and a safer public environment."

"As it goes for large sports venues and professional sports team, there are not a whole lot of them. I think it's a challenge to be a risk manager for one," Guilbert added. "I don't think it's been an easy job for him, but I think he's excelled at it"

His success could stem from his past experiences as a wholesale broker and underwriter, or his personable and approachable nature.

"Personally, I think he rocks!" says Wergechik.

--By Matthew Brodsky

Director of Risk Management
Darden Restaurants Inc.
Orlando, Fla.

The secret sauce for success: tying risk management into the corporate philosophy.

It says it all about a risk management program when the company CEO gets before a global audience on one of those cable financial shows and states, "We are focused on running the cleanest and safest restaurants in the business." Darden Restaurants CEO and Chairman Clarence Otis Jr. did just that. It's the ultimate recognition for the work of Darden Director of Risk Management Tom Cipollone.

What can drive a CEO to speak so highly about risk management, safety and loss control? Try 17 straight quarters with reductions in workers' comp claims, with an overall reduction of 38.2 percent since FY2002. Claims with dollars going down by 48.8 percent from FY2002 to FY2007. And the expense of claims overall dropping at an annual rate of 15.4 percent in the last four years.

Or when it comes to the other prime restaurant concern--customer safety--Cipollone's work has lowered general liability claims frequency by 25.9 percent from FY2002 to FY2007.

Add up all of these results for the fastest growing casual dining company in America, and you get a 46.2 percent drop in workers' comp and general liability costs from FY2004 to FY2007, or $60.7 million.

"We've made some pretty amazing strides against the industry and in a broader look at the competitive landscapes," said Bill White, senior vice president, treasurer and Cipollone's direct supervisor at Darden.

"What's really exciting about being a part of it is he's driven it into the highest levels of senior management," said Charles Gerber of Liberty Mutual, who heads the risk consulting team hired by Cipollone to deliver risk management services and safety throughout the Darden organization.

Gerber has the sense that, while watching Cipollone operate over the last four years, that that was his goal from the get-go--to get this top level buy-in about safety, to essentially get the execs to "walk their talk."

"Early on when this process really began, he laid out the information, it was pretty clear. The opportunity spoke for itself when you looked at the dollars and the pressures that were naturally occurring," said White.

"He was able to take that thread if you will and turn it into an opportunity for us to really lay out the different steps that we could take," he said.

It's a matter, White explained, of not only appealing to the feel-good side of company management, but proving to them that the bottom line would always benefit as well.

Gerber astutely observed that Cipollone was able to apply this strategy with "baby step" tactics, basing everything he did on facts and evidence, not making sweeping promises he couldn't readily hold, identifying root causes of loss, teaching operations to avoid them and showing management the financial incentives for doing so.

Cipollone, who has been with Darden for 13 years and is the company's first and only risk manager, explained how the company used to play "whack a mole" with risk management problems, but that proved impossible with 1,700 restaurants. The risk manager believes that the company needs a passion and a system, which doesn't happen all at once.

"You need to demonstrate credible results, start out by building on small successes," he said. "It's to the point now, whatever we bring to them (management), has credibility and they're willing to implement it or give it very serious consideration to build it into their business plans."

We're talking baby steps like an investment in box and bag cutting tools, new cutting gloves, slip resistant soles--all which seem small on their own, but multiplied by thousands of restaurants and employees can have huge impact.

The slip-resistant sole program alone delivered $13 million in results, reported Cipollone, with a 72 percent reduction in slips and falls into the second year and beyond. Now Cipollone is into working with building designers to engineer safety into how his restaurants are laid out and constructed.

It all sounds pretty basic, admitted Cipollone, but it's a matter of implementation and doing it right the first time. It's also about innovation down to the minutest details, ingraining risk awareness into every nook and cranny of an operation.

It's about passion, too, vision and dedication to that vision.

"I think it's something that's spreading through all the business units," said White, pointing to how the two new Darden brands, LongHorn Steakhouse and Capital Grille are enthusiastic about entering into Cipollone's program. "There's a lot more pull for the services that his team provides than push."

--By Matthew Brodsky

If risk managers should take one thing from Tom Cipollone's success at Darden Restaurants, it's his ability to earn his leaders' respect and fire up their imaginations. A lot of risk managers talk about getting their foot into the C-suite. Well, boys and girls, it's time to get your goals ingrained in those executive minds.

It's time to effect change in the C-suite. Like the time that the president of one of Darden's brands requested an extra pair of slip-resistant galoshes before he entered one of his restaurants ... because he forgot his own. And need we remind you of the story of Darden's CEO chanting the benefits of risk management to a global financial audience?

Cipollone said his key has been aligning risk management with his company's core values, or more importantly, vice versa.

"How we run those restaurants on a day-to-day basis directly impacts the lives of our employees and our guests," he said.