RIMS 2025 Goodell Award Winner Randy Nornes

RIMScast

chevron_right

00:00

Project Six: Whistleblower Nonprofit

Randy recounts founding Project Six to expose corruption, gather tips, and prompt ethics reforms in Chicago government.

Play episode from 38:50

chevron_right

Transcript

chevron_right

Transcript

Episode notes

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 aren't in our space when we use the word risk. Everyone has a different definition of risk. Randy says everyone can get on board with certainty and uncertainty.

[16:34] Randy says, what we're doing with modeling is trying to understand what the distance between certainty and uncertainty looks like. Then, we have to decide what's comfortable and where our tolerance is. Then, decide what to do with the part that we want to get rid of.

[16:48] That's at the core of risk management, and it hasn't changed in decades. The tools we have now have changed dramatically.

[16:56] Justin cites Christy Kaufman from the profile article, who said that Randy is far more than a traditional broker; he is a thought partner and a problem-solver. Justin asks what allows Randy to move beyond transactional work into a strategic advisory mindset.

[17:19] Randy says insurance is a complete waste of money, unless you can show how you're adding value. You can get there by showing this uncertainty spectrum and understanding it.

[17:58] Randy says the mindset is, "I've parachuted in. What do we have going on?" If I did that today, I'd be looking at supply chain issues. It's amazing when you have that lens. Early on, he looked at a supply chain that was "perfect, end-to-end" on spreadsheets.

[18:27] Everything was manually entered. Managers were judged on average inventory levels, and wanted to keep the levels as low as possible. To game the system, they ran inventory at the lowest level.

[18:57] They would raise the inventory at the end of the month to make it look like they were on target. It was not a real-time inventory. It looked like risk management was fine, but the chance of a stockout or a long-term impact was pretty great.

[19:24] A Quick Break! RISKWORLD 2026 will be held from May 3rd through the 6th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. RISKWORLD attracts more than 10,000 risk professionals across the globe. It's time to Connect, Cultivate, and Collaborate with them.

[19:43] Booth sales are open now. General registration and speaker registration are also open right now. Marketplace and hospitality badges will be available starting on March 3rd. Links are in this episode's show notes, and be sure to check out RIMS.org for more information.

[20:02] Save the dates March 18th and 19th, 2026, for the RIMS Legislative Summit, which will be held in Washington, D.C.! Join us in Washington, D.C. for two days of Congressional meetings, networking, and advocating on behalf of the risk management community.

[20:19] Visit RIMS.org/advocacy for more information and to register. Also, check out the prior episode of RIMScast, Episode 378, featuring RIMS General Counsel and Vice President of External Affairs, Mark Prysock, as we discuss the top priorities for RIMS in 2026 and beyond.

[20:39] The Second Annual RIMS Texas Regional Conference will be held in San Antonio from August 10th through August 12th.

[20:46] The call for submissions for educational sessions is open through March 18th. Check out the link in this episode's show notes and make a pitch! Hopefully, you get selected, and we'll see you in San Antonio!

[20:59] Let's Return to Our Interview with 2025 Goodel Award Winner, Randy Nornes!

[21:19] Justin asks how Randy delivers good or bad news to a high-level executive. Randy says he was gifted by his radio announcer father with a very calm demeanor. You're delivering what it is, based on some fact. Randy has had to deliver a lot of crazy facts over the years.

[22:29] Early in his career, Randy had a financial institution client. They had some major issues. He was standing outside the boardroom, ready to go in to tell them whether they had insurance or not. They did not. He was on the phone with London, working out some coverage.

[23:28] He got the message while he was in there that they had managed to land something for the client, so he could pivot. His colleagues said they couldn't believe how calm he had been, going in.

[24:11] Randy says it's best to set the landscape with executives before extra risk is taken, showing alternatives and strategy, so if something happens, it was foreseen, you were just unlucky in that year.

[24:53] If you hadn't done the front-end work and gotten everybody onboard to see why it was the right strategy, then the news of unanticipated issues gets a lot harder to deliver.

[25:04] There's a lot of front-end work to do. To drop bad news on people without any prep is going to be a lot harder. Being transparent and on the same page, especially with finance people, makes communication easy. This flows up to the CFO and higher. Set the foundation.

[25:51] Randy has 100s of people focused on data centers. They have analysts and use AI for some things. There are people from the financial institution vertical, construction, operations, cyber, AI, energy, and renewal. They gather together. It's multidisciplinary, under one umbrella.

[27:05] Randy says his leadership style is collaborative. He tries to lift the whole team, orchestrating how it comes together. He lets them have the success they deserve. Randy is a strong proponent of mentorship. It's the secret to his success.

[27:50] Randy has worked with some people for his entire career, as clients, colleagues, or competitors, and he stays connected with them. Hundreds of people fit that profile.

[28:17] Another Quick Break! The Spencer Educational Foundation's Risk Manager on Campus application period will open on April 1st, 2026, and it will close on June 30th. Grant awardees, colleges, and universities are typically notified in September.

[28:43] The Course Development Grant application deadline for Interval Number 2 will be on June 15th, 2026. Award notifications will be sent out in late July.

[28:57] General Grant applications will open on May 1st, 2026, and the application deadline is July 30th. Internship Grant applications open on August 15th and close on October 15th.

[29:10] Links to each of these grants are in this episode's show notes. Visit SpencerEd.org for more information.

[29:18] Let's Conclude Our Interview with 2025 Goodel Award Winner, Randy Nornes.

[29:39] Randy worked with Pat Ryan to lead the Risk Management and Financial Guarantee Team for Chicago's 2016 Summer Olympic bid. Randy says when Pat retired as CEO of Aon, he took on this project to head Chicago's Olympic bid. He invited Randy to the project.

[30:19] In an Olympic Bid, the city has to sign a Host City Agreement that says they will take on the risks of delivering the Games. There's an effective financial guarantee. Globally, it is often done on a country level. That's not how it operates in the U.S.

[30:43] Pat and Randy had to figure out how to de-risk the games so that what the city's guarantee would look like was limited because the team had built insurance and risk management. On the construction side, they had contractors take on risks.

[31:03] They created a de-risking model. It was the first time anyone had done that for an Olympic Games. Chicago was not successful, but the work the team did on de-risking the Games became the model that a lot of Western cities took on for their Olympic bids.

[32:03] Randy says you start with a line-item budget that the bid team puts out. A big part of it is the construction of venues, living spaces, technology, including massive broadcast bandwidth, tens of thousands of volunteers to transport and train, and secure.

[32:35] Randy says they took the line-item budget and worked on each item separately, to create certainty and shrink the distance between certain and uncertain, so that when they put the umbrella guarantee on top of it, it touched a lot fewer things and had a lot more certainty.

[33:01] The biggest thing the umbrella policy covered is delivering the Games on a certain date. No delays. All the costs are front-end. If, for some reason, the Games don't happen: terrorism, global war, or pandemic, you're stuck with all those front-end costs. It's the worst case.

[33:39] The closer you get to the event, the more risk you have. Then you have the three or four weeks when you're delivering the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games.

[33:49] Randy says it was interesting. They did a white paper on it, "How to De-risk Games." It was done to encourage cities not to be afraid to host the Games.

[34:19] Randy says, over the years, when cities in North America are bidding for Winter or Summer, they reach out, and Pat and Randy give them the template. San Francisco, LA, Boston, and Calgary all asked for it.

[34:51] Most of the people on the Bid Committee were on the City level. It was Mayor Daley, his staff, and 50 aldermen. Randy says, We gave them lots of transparency into what we were doing.

[35:16] Randy says they provided 1,200 pages of material, in 3-ring binders, for each of the aldermen. They also put all the text on discs to search electronically. Later, an alderman called Randy, angry because he couldn't listen to the disc in his car. Randy explained it to him.

[3:24] Randy thinks a city should be thankful to host the Olympic Games. They make the city sparkle. The city gets a big influx of outside money. Chicago would have gotten a lot of Federal money. The transportation system would have been upgraded. It would make the city better.

[36:49] Randy describes how London and Paris were improved by hosting the Olympic Games. If you're thinking of bidding, it's worth it. Randy wishes Chicago's bid had been successful.

[37:33] Justin and Randy comment on the Milan Winter Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies. The next Winter Olympics will be on the French side of the Alps.

[38:01] Justin says that Chicago is known for its colorful history of notorious characters.

[38:45] Justin asks Randy about Project Six. Project Six came out of the Olympic Bid. Seeing corruption in the city government, Randy and a few committee members put together Project Six, referring to the six business leaders who partnered with Elliot Ness to go after Al Capone.

[39:44] They set up Project Six as a nonprofit whistleblower organization so people could come to report corruption. They got hundreds of whistleblower tips. They published things and gave information on criminal activity to Federal prosecutors.

[40:07] Some things were not criminal but unethical. When the Chicago Cubs were playing in the World Series, public officials paid face value for Cubs tickets instead of the market price. Project Six brought it to the ethics committee, and they changed that practice for tickets.

[41:31] Randy says they did not make a lot of friends in public office. Project Six is closed.

[41:47] Randy talks about angering a bunch of people in public office. They went after Project Six because they weren't getting whistleblower tips on Republicans. There might have been one Republican commissioner in Chicago.

[42:20] Randy says some of the senior people they ruffled went after donors. So it was a better idea to shut it down. It ran for three and a half years.

[42:41] Randy says the biggest frustration was how slow things move. It takes years for some convictions to go through. You would like justice to happen faster. Randy hopes that when high-profile people go to prison, others pause to consider.

[43:59] Randy gives his advice on what separates a good risk manager or problem solver from a great one. He says not to get too focused on what you did yesterday. Every day, step back and ask, Am I still doing the right stuff? Am I focused on the right thing?

[44:26] You have a fixed amount of money to spend to solve your risk problems. You're insuring your buildings for fire, but over time, you've engineered them to be fire-resistant. There is less risk. At the same time, you have AI, cyber risk, and new things that come in.

[44:48] Is it better to direct money to solve cyber risk and take on more risk for property? Don't get hung up on what you did yesterday. Stepping back and staying on top of what's happening with the business has never been more important.

[45:17] Businesses are transforming before our eyes, and AI is leading the transformation. Make sure you're interacting with your business to stay current on what the business is all about.

[46:02] Randy says being at Aon a long time has given him a lot of latitude to do all the things he has done. He can look for new things, cut across the towers that exist and think about risk at the broadest level.

[46:40] If you move company to company, you'll step into the new role, fix a few things, and move to the next company. You won't have the latitude to experiment with new things or ask what comes next. You're there because you're needed at that time.

[47:07] Randy says, That can be comfortable. But don't get too comfortable and make sure you're staying current.

[47:17] We really appreciate you joining us here on the show. I want to wish you congratulations again on the Goodel Award. It's a big honor here at RIMS, and you certainly deserve it.

[47:27] I look forward to meeting you in Philadelphia, from May 3rd through the 6th at RISKWORLD! Thank you so much for joining us here on RIMScast, Randy!

[47:40] Special thanks again to 2025 Goodel Award Winner, Randy Nornes, for joining us here on RIMSCast! A link to his profile in RIMS Risk Management Magazine's Awards Edition 2025 is in this episode's show notes.

[47:57] He's one of our men in Chicago. Check out ChicagoRIMS.org. They have a live event coming up called "Nuclear Verdicts: Live Mock Trial for Evaluating Litigation Risk and Strategy" at the Aon Center (Chicago), on March 11th. You might see Randy there!

[48:14] We've got the Chicago RIMS Annual Golf Outing on September 21st, and the 11th Annual Chicagoland Risk Forum on September 24th at the Old Post Office in Chicago. They're one of our most active and vibrant chapters, so check out those events and visit ChicagoRIMS.org.

[48:34] Plug Time! You can sponsor a RIMScast episode for this, our weekly show, or a dedicated episode. Links to sponsored episodes are in the show notes.

[49:02] RIMScast has a global audience of risk and insurance professionals, legal professionals, students, business leaders, C-Suite executives, and more. Let's collaborate and help you reach them! Contact pd@rims.org for more information.

[49:20] Become a RIMS member and get access to the tools, thought leadership, and network you need to succeed. Visit RIMS.org/membership or email membershipdept@RIMS.org for more information.

[49:37] Risk Knowledge is the RIMS searchable content library that provides relevant information for today's risk professionals. Materials include RIMS executive reports, survey findings, contributed articles, industry research, benchmarking data, and more.

[49:54] For the best reporting on the profession of risk management, read Risk Management Magazine at RMMagazine.com. It is written and published by the best minds in risk management.

[50:08] Justin Smulison is the Business Content Manager at RIMS. Please remember to subscribe to RIMScast on your favorite podcasting app. You can email us at Content@RIMS.org.

[50:20] Practice good risk management, stay safe, and thank you again for your continuous support!

Links:

RIMS Legislative Summit — March 18-19, 2026 on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. | Register now!

RISKWORLD 2026 Registration — Open for exhibitors, members, and non-members!

Reserve your booth at RISKWORLD 2026!

Spencer Educational Foundation — Scholarships and Grants

RIMS Texas Regional Conference 2026 Education Content Submission — Deadline March 18, 2026!

RIMS-CRO Certificate Program In Advanced Enterprise Risk Management | April ‒ June 2026 Cohort | Led by James Lam

RIMS Compensation Survey 2025 — Download Today

RIMS Risk Management magazine | Contribute | Awards Edition 2025

RIMS Now

RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) | Insights Video Series Featuring Joe Milan!