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

In this episode, Justin interviews Randy Nornes, the 2025 Harry and Dorothy Goodell Award Winner, about his career. They talk about uncertainty and a long-term approach to risk. Randy won the 2025 Goodell Award for his lifetime achievements. He is a problem solver. Randy advises risk professionals not to focus on what they did yesterday, but on what is happening today, and to stay current with risks such as AI and cyber risk. Randy talks about how staying with Aon for years has given him the latitude to look across the company and focus on the next risk.

Listen for tips on laying the groundwork before the risks.

Key Takeaways:

[:01] About RIMS and RIMScast.

[:16] About this episode of RIMScast. Our guest is 2025 Goodell Award Winner Randy Nornes. We will learn all about his fascinating career and his risk philosophies. But first…

[:42] RIMS Virtual Workshops. On March 10th and 11th, we have a two-day course led by John Button for the RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep.

[:53] On March 17th and 18th, RIMS will align with AFERM for a two-day RIMS-CRMP-FED Exam Prep Course.

[1:01] On March 4th and 5th, we have a virtual workshop, "Facilitating Risk-Based Decision Making", with Joe Milan. On April 15th, we have a virtual workshop covering "Emerging Risks", led by Joseph Mayo.

[1:18] Register today and strengthen your risk knowledge. RIMS members always enjoy deep discounts on the virtual workshops.

[1:26] Webinars. On March 6th, RIMS presents "Hard Hats & High Stakes: Women Leaders Shaping Construction Risk Management". We'll be joined by a Chief Risk Officer, an underwriter, and a broker.

[1:40] They will explore their career paths, risk and safety philosophies, and lend some insight as to why this is the time for the next generation of leaders to rise.

[1:51] For a quick preview, check out last week's episode with Cynthia Garcia. She is the Chief Risk Officer from Bernards, who will be joining us on that exciting panel.

[2:00] On March 12th, Global Risk Consultants returns with "Don't Waste the Soft Market: Where to Reinvest Insurance Savings Before the Window Closes". Register for these and other webinars by visiting RIMS.org/webinars and the links in this episode's show notes.

[2:20] On with the Show! Our guest today, Randy Nornes, is the 2025 Harry and Dorothy Goodel Award Winner.

[2:29] Named after the first President of RIMS and his wife, the Harry and Dorothy Goodell Award honors an individual who has furthered the goals of risk management and the Society through outstanding service and lifetime achievement.

[2:41] Randy Nornes exemplifies all that and more. He has been with Aon for 38-plus years. Currently, Randy is the Executive Vice President and Enterprise Client Partner for Technology, Media, and the Communications Industry. He has done some volunteer work, which we will talk about.

[3:00] Randy has a fascinating career. We're going to learn about it as well as his leadership style, his risk philosophy, and how he is keeping Aon at the forefront of AI innovation.

[3:09] [If you've been to RISKWORLD, you've seen Randy in the halls and the educational sessions. He has been an ever-present force there. And he is a highly-regarded member of the Chicago RIMS Chapter. Let's get to it!

[3:23] Interview! 2025 Goodel Award Winner, Randy Nornes, welcome to RIMScast!

[3:44] Randy is proud of that award. He wonders, after receiving a lifetime achievement award, what's next? Retirement? Should he write a book?

[4:11] On the day of the award, Randy was backstage with Martha Stewart and had a chance to visit with her and discuss risk management.

[4:21] Randy's wife and one of his sons were in the audience. When Martha Stewart came out and spoke, she referred to their conversation. Randy gained credibility at home that Martha Stewart listened to what he had to say!

[4:52] Justin says that RISKWORLD 2025 was fantastic! Randy says he has probably attended three dozen RISKWORLD conferences. He says they get better and are different every time. You can see, decade by decade, what's important.

[5:31] There is a wonderful profile on Randy Nornes, written by Russ Banham, in the special Awards edition of RIMS Risk Management Magazine. It is still available online. That's how Justin got to know Randy Nornes before this interview.

[5:57] Randy always tries to link up with what the next big thing is. Since late 2025, Randy has been leading Aon's AI infrastructure efforts, from the financing of data centers, to the construction, to the development, to the operation, and to the energy attached to that.

[6:28] AI is the next big thing. Randy says that 40% of GDP is coming through the lens of building AI infrastructure. Aon has a big team for it, and that's what Randy does every day. He says it's massive, exciting, and relentless.

[7:03] Randy says, Because it's coming so fast and furious, it's not something you have time to sit back and think about. He says we're seeing this thing evolve week by week. It's global. Risk management is at the center of making it all work.

[7:27] Randy says there's a different lens depending on where you sit in the AI infrastructure world. Everyone is thinking about the risks of the construction, the operation, the access to power, and the climate. It's all melded into one thing.

[7:48] Randy calls the Chicago RIMS Chapter big and vibrant. Chicago is unique in having representation from so many different industries. It's not highly concentrated. People have a lot of lenses to look at risks through. It makes for good conversations.

[8:11] Justin notes that last year's Risk Manager of the Year, Jennifer Pack, was from Chicago. The Rising Star, Megan Smalter, was originally from Chicago. Randy has spent time on the West and East Coasts, and he finds the Chicago Chapter unique, with 25 different industries.

[8:49] Justin gives a shout-out to Julie Bean, the 2024 Heart of RIMS Award Winner. Justin says Randy is in great company. The talent coming out of Chicago brings something special to RIMS.

[9:27] Randy was going to be a banker. A banker manages risk around lending and projects. It's not a huge leap to get to the world of risk management from there.

[9:44] In the 1980s, it was a turbulent time for banking. We had just come out of a tough inflationary period, with real estate bankruptcies and banks and savings and loans going under. His advisor told him not to go into banking.

[10:18] Randy interviewed someone from Chubb. Chubb was scaling up a new product, Directors' and Officers' insurance. Randy was good at case studies in business school. Underwriting D&O insurance is a case study. Randy thought he could do that job.

[10:54] Randy started at Chubb and ended where he is today. In 1987, Randy moved to Frank B. Hall, acquired by Aon in 1992. He was young and a good worker, so he was kept by the company. He says it was a trip working alongside Pat Ryan and learning the business at Chubb.

[11:48] Pat Ryan took Randy and others under his wing. He is a great mentor. Randy credits him for access. Randy mentions other early supporters, Al Diamond and Skip Dunn. With Pat Ryan, Randy was always looking for the next big risk to come along or a new framework.

[13:00] In the 1990s, governance, Sarbanes-Oxley, and enterprise risk frameworks came to the forefront, following bankruptcies of major companies that had appeared to be successful.

[13:28] When enterprise risk became a thing, it needed frameworks. That led Randy to build one of the first enterprise-risk-focused teams to help companies think about it. This was before COSO.

[13:55] Randy says a lot of the clients they dealt with in those early days were in industries where someone had already gone through some trauma, and they wanted to make sure they weren't next up. It was a lot of, "Hurry up and make sure we're OK!"

[14:26] Randy says, in the 1990s, they were doing risk modeling. The reinsurance teams had risk models that ran on AS400 mainframe computers. They had to book computing time to run a scenario with a set of assumptions. They would run 10,000 simulations in a day.

[14:55] If they wanted to change the assumptions, they had to book another time.

[15:02] Now it's all on the laptop. The quality of data is significantly higher. They can do it in real time. Risk managers today may not recognize how lucky they are.

[15:24] Randy says, We're always trying to decide what problem we're trying to solve for and what we know about that particular issue. The modeling is the entry point to know what to do or what matters.

[16:10] Randy thinks risk is a terrible word. We risk professionals have a hard time communicating with people who are...