Publications

Mastering Operational Risk

Mastering Operational Risk by John Thirlwell and Tony Blunden published by Financial Times Prentice Hall is now available

How to buy

Paperback and e-book versions in English:
www.pearson-books.com/MOR - for 35% discount
www.amazon.co.uk

Paperback version in Chinese:
Posts & Telecommunications Press (www.ptpress.com/cn/english)

In this practical guide, Tony Blunden and John Thirlwell, recognised experts in risk management, bring a wealth of experience to show you how to manage operational risk and why operational risk management really will add benefits to your business.

Mastering Operational Risk includes:

• The business case for operational risk
• Risk and control assessment
• How to use operational risk indicators
• Reporting operational risk
• Modelling and stress-testing operational risk
• Business continuity and insurance
• Managing people risk
• Containing reputational damage

Download the book flyer(pdf, 132kb).

For further information visit the dedicated 'Mastering Operational Risk' website.

The second edition of Mastering Operational Risk by Tony Blunden and John Thirlwell was published in September 2013. For further details, see www.masteringoperationalrisk.com

The Worshipful Company of International Bankers – A short history of its formation

(December 2010)

When he wrote his review of the Guild of International Bankers’ Inaugural Dinner at the Mansion House in July 2001, Christopher Fildes quoted Joseph Addison, some three hundred years before, praising the internationalism of the City of London, ‘a kind of Emporium for the whole Earth’, and asked the simple question of the Guild: why had it taken them so long?

In attempting to answer that question in this short account of the Guild’s genesis, I have been led through many centuries and many countries, back to Knights Templar and Jews, and to those early Italian bankers who came to London in the thirteenth century and continued to ply their trades as merchants and bankers there until well into the fifteenth. They had followed the great trade routes, from east to west and, importantly for our story, from the Mediterranean in the south to Flanders and England in the north. English wool and cloth made its way south and silks, brocades, leather, jewels, armour and spices made their way north. And where the merchants settled, so some became bankers.

Other publications

The Good Chairperson's Guide

Chapter in ‘The Basel Handbook’, 2nd edition, Riskbooks, 2007. ‘Insurance and Operational Risk’.

Regular contributor to "Operational Risk" Magazine (Incisive Media)

Co-author Operational Risk, training module and exam guide (Securities Institute)

Co-author, A Guide to Business Continuity Management (BBA/KPMG) (Jan 2003)

Initiated BBA survey on outsourcing practices in banking and financial services (with Tarlo Lyons) and organised publication of results and case studies (June 2001)

At BBA, wrote and published a contingency planning guide for banks for Y2K and a similar guide for small businesses

See also the "Articles" section