Each of these had their differences and similarities, with the four notable 21st  century crises (leaving the pandemic and collapse in economic activity aside) including:

1. Argentina 2001 – 2002, leading to the country’s government losing access to capital markets.

2. The 2007–2009 global financial crisis, considered the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression.

3. Falling commodity prices following the annexation of Crimea from the Ukraine in 2014 led to the partial collapse of Russia’s economy, followed by the full Russian invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 which has led to unprecedented sanctions by the West, and unexpected deep-rooted worldwide economic impact.

4. The 2023 bank upheaval with the failure of the US banks Silicon Valley and First Republic, and the Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse.

Managing the business through crisis is the principal responsibility of the COO. Reacting to and coordinating action to such events is a mainstay of their mandate. As we exit the recent regulatory era, much linked to the 2007 – 2009 crisis, the attention of the COO is shifting to managing what many believe to be the challenge for the coming epoch, non-financial risk.

Shifting the attention to emerging risk and horizon scanning will be key to effectively meeting unforeseen challenges and events, getting on the front foot and building in operational resilience to minimise impact.

Conversely, since 2008 much of the attention of the COO has been inward and backward facing, tasked to ensure the events and practices that led to the crash do not happen again. You can argue the comparatively smooth execution of business by the industry to deal with the failures of Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic and Credit Suisse is testament to the embedded resilience of the industry born from a decade plus of post-Credit Crunch regulation, matched by the industry’s determination to tidy up its own backyard.

There is no doubt the regulatory ripples of 2008 have ensured banks are certainly no longer as vulnerable as they were pre-financial crisis. They have faced an unprecedented level of regulatory scrutiny and are far better positioned from a liquidity perspective. All be it, the demise of Credit Suisse demonstrated the exposure of any bank to a market run on their reserves, whilst conversely the expediency with which the Swiss regulators, government and UBS responded to the demise of Credit Suisse, showed that lessons had been learnt. Decisive action was taken to avoid contagion.

Capital and leverage ratios for banks are now significantly stronger and the so-called “too big to fail” global banks have never been better positioned from a solvency and liquidity point of view going into the next potential recession. Banks are also less complex and face harsh stress tests annually to check their ability to withstand severe losses.

It has been an intense and demanding period for the industry to get it to this point, with much of the responsibility to do so resting with the COO and their supporting teams dedicated to regulation, controls, governance, risk and conduct.

The challenges of the 2020 pandemic once again exposed the financial system, albeit this time for a very different reason. Governments around the world invested taxpayers’ money, this time into their economies as opposed to the banks, again using unconventional monetary policy to prop up commerce and industry and directly support a workforce mostly put on pause.

Additionally, the tasks for the COO in navigating their company through the pandemic were layered and complex, with the overriding challenge being staff management, morale, productivity and maintenance of the culture. Post-pandemic and a return to normal working conditions things for the industry are far from normal for many companies, as they are now dealing with the adoption of hybrid working patterns that were granted with little evidence to truly understand the medium to long-term impacts of assuming such policies.

In 2022 Russia invaded the Ukraine. As with the pandemic such an event was plausible, even probable. In both cases the industry’s propensity to look at the today and the near horizon allowed a collective failure of the imagination to prevent the industry being better prepared for either event.