GRI President and CEO Sonia Baxendale welcomed attendees to the summit, thanked members of the board, GRI staff, members and summit sponsors. She spoke about GRI’s expanding membership and mandate, and shared high-level results of the 2023 member survey, which revealed that members value GRI for being on the forefront of emerging risks, and for offering unique services that can’t be found elsewhere.

Baxendale set the scene for the day’s discussion, saying that generational change has transformed the role of corporations from entities solely concerned with profit to members of a global community, expected to take positive action on issues of the day. To that end, she introduced GRI’s new riskLIT program, which promises to strengthen risk literacy across the financial sector.