Enterprise Risk Management for Higher Education - Baker Tilly Accountants and Advisors


Higher Education Audit and Assurance Best Practices / Benchmarking Studies Board and Audit Committee Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) Construction Project Risk Management Enterprise Risk Management Financial Modeling and Decision Support Financial Ratios / Benchmarking Forensic Accounting and Fraud Investigations Information Technology and Data Privacy Internal Audit Regulatory Compliance Sponsored Research Compliance Strategy and Finance Tax

Enterprise risk management

At Baker Tilly, we employ a collaborative and facilitative approach to Enterprise Risk Management (ERM).

Our approach encourages management input, participation, and ownership of engagement outcomes. Additionally, we are experienced and knowledgeable facilitators of discussions with senior leadership, having led and participated in many Audit Committee and Board of Trustees meetings covering enterprise-wide risk areas.

The Baker Tilly team has helped numerous organizations in evaluating risk assessment processes, analyzing the results, and developing communication strategies, then presenting these plans and their results to senior leaders and board members across a wide span of industries. We have led assessments of strategic, finance, operations, and compliance risks for institutions of higher education and other businesses. Our goal is to provide insight into how to best deploy limited resources to mitigate risk.

Client experience: Incorporating enterprise risk concepts
Institutional challenge The Board of Trustees of a large university expressed concern to management about whether the board was receiving information about the highest risk areas to the university. The institution desired to objectively assess its most significant risks and ensure that risk mitigation plans were in place to address them. Capabilities provided Baker Tilly teamed with management to perform a university-wide risk assessment. In conducting the assessment, Baker Tilly interviewed over 30 members of the university’s senior management, administration, and the Audit Committee. After performing a preliminary round of interviews, we maintained regular communication with senior management to gain a better contextual understanding of the observations gathered. We noted during the course of the risk assessment that the majority of risk mitigation strategies employed in the past had been focused on the centralized office’s perspective, rather than the individual schools’ and departments’ perspectives. We developed recommendations to address these areas and we continue to work with the university to support its strategic plan and priorities. Results The Board of Trustees gained assurance that a thorough process for assessing and addressing risks had been employed and that management and the Audit Committee were focused on risk areas with the highest likelihood and potential impact.
Additional enterprise risk management capabilities
ERM process assessment ERM process development ERM training Risk mitigation plan development