William LePard

Every business aims to perform better than the competition. This involves undertaking various forms of business risk, whether in production, sales, distribution, etc. and managing it better than others. These are the types of risks companies are rewarded for undertaking and efficiently addressing, by increased sales & revenues and/or shareholder value.

My job is to ensure companies don’t get blindsided by a risk they either don’t know they have or don’t realize they can hedge. Principally, these involve a company’s financial market risks such as interest rate and currency risk.

In 26 years at a large money-centre bank, working with a wide range of clients on derivatives hedging and capital markets issues, I was impressed by how companies considered interest rate, currency and other market risks. Yet I was struck by how many businesses chose not to hedge them.

Some companies, though fewer in more recent years, had not even given much thought as to these financial market risks and did not realise how they can be efficiently and economically hedged.

My role is to listen to clients, describe their business and help identify and quantify these financial and market risks. Then, we can develop and recommend alternatives for hedging that are consistent with the company’s business and objectives.

What makes our business particularly rewarding is the breadth and depth of product solutions for our clients. While most financial risks can be hedged with simple and straightforward hedging tools, market innovation helps clients with more complex risks to hedge as well. Our work frees our clients to focus on execution of their business plans and goals.