Dear friends,
Earlier this year, I sat in the audience listening to Dr Richard Harris share the inside story of the Thai cave rescue. I remember the news when it happened, but hearing him in person was different — calm courage, careful preparation, and a team that kept moving in the dark. It stayed with me, so I picked up his book, The Art of Risk.
Around the same time I started A Man for All Markets by Edward O. Thorp — the mathematician who beat casinos and then built market-beating strategies on Wall Street. No magic. Just small edges, clear risk limits, and discipline over time.
Two very different worlds. One shared lesson: risk is not always the enemy. With the right mindset (Harris) and method (Thorp), risk can be faced, managed, and sometimes turned into opportunity.
From Books to Business
Right now, many people are dealing with cost pressures, restructures, and tough choices. In finance, that pressure shows up in our day-to-day: targets to hit, costs to control, decisions to support. I keep coming back to this: our value isn’t only explaining numbers — it’s turning uncertainty into insight and action.
- A financial analyst might answer “what happened”: costs are higher than budget.
- A finance manager or commercial leader answers “what now”: costs are higher because steel prices rose 8%. If the trend continues, EBITDA will fall $3m. Our options are renegotiating supplier contracts, redesigning the product, or passing partial costs onto pricing. Here’s my recommendation.
This is what makes the profession evolve: not just presenting numbers, but telling the story, naming the drivers, framing the risks, and offering actionable solutions.
That’s exactly what Harris and Thorp embody. Harris shows the mindset needed when facing the unknown; Thorp shows the method of breaking risk into manageable bets. Together, they mirror what good FP&A and commercial finance should be.
Action Board: Turning Risk into Insight
Here’s a simple way I’ve been thinking about risk — whether in projects, finance, or life:
- Name the risk clearly – not “variance,” but the real driver: demand drop, FX swing, steel +8%, project delay.
- Scenario it – best, base, and worst cases. Quantify impact.
- Find the driver – what assumption or event is behind the number? Translate into commercial terms.
- Generate options – cost lever, timing lever, revenue lever. Give leaders real choices.
- Recommend and assign – pick a preferred path, set an owner, and define triggers to pivot if conditions change.
- Refresh fast – let technology (dashboards, rolling forecasts, AI tools) handle the mechanics so we can focus on insight and action.
Beyond the Numbers: The New Skills We Need
In earlier weeks, I’ve talked about the new skills finance needs. This week reinforced it for me: the future of our profession isn’t in processing transactions — those will be automated or offshored.
What remains valuable are the higher-order skills:
- Risk framing – translating uncertainty into decisions.
- Commercial storytelling – not just what happened, but why it matters.
- Judgment under pressure – like Harris, knowing when to push and when to pause.
- Discipline and patience – like Thorp, compounding small insights into long-term value.
These aren’t textbook skills. They’re built over years of practice, reflection, and the courage to step beyond the spreadsheet.
Risk, AI, and Our Next Chapter
AI is accelerating this shift. Just like Thorp used probability to beat the odds, AI can now model scenarios and test assumptions faster than any human. It can spot patterns, flag risks, and automate the mechanical side of finance.
But Harris reminds us of something AI can’t do: bring courage, preparation, and teamwork when stakes are high. The real risk isn’t AI itself — it’s how we choose to adopt and use it.
For me, these two books fit perfectly with our moment: AI is the new uncertainty. If we face it with Harris’s mindset and Thorp’s discipline, we won’t just survive change — we can turn it into opportunity.
My Takeaway
The sky is not falling. Risk is everywhere — in markets, in projects, in careers and daily life. But risk doesn’t have to paralyze us. With courage, discipline, and a mindset of continuous learning, we can turn uncertainty — including AI — into clarity and growth.
👉 My reflection this week: Are we just explaining the numbers — or are we translating risk into insight and action?
Until next time —
Lydia
P.S. If this letter found you at just the right moment, I’d love to hear about it. Join my weekly letter list and let’s figure it out together — one AI-shaped step at a time. Join the weekly letter list.40+ and Figuring It Out
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