Risk leaders had a lot to say at Riskworld, a mega conference for insurance and risk management pros earlier this month in Chicago.

But amid all the talk of tariffs, geopolitics, and artificial intelligence, another key theme emerged: Organizations must view risks not as independent of each other, but interconnected. Doing this pushes company leaders to think differently about the challenges they face and best practices in addressing them, experts told CFO Brew.

“The big theme is the convergence of risk,” Michelle Sartain, US and Canada president at insurance brokerage Marsh, said when we asked what guidance she gives to organizations looking to better manage risks.

“Many companies, they’ll do a risk assessment and they’ll try to itemize what the big risks are for their organization,” Sartain said. “But increasingly, those risks, A) they’re not static, and B) they’re not isolated. It’s the interconnected nature of those risks and the way they layer on each other, and the way that they can ebb and flow, that really require organizations to think of risk as a dynamic, living, breathing thing in their organization that they have to constantly evaluate and reevaluate.”

No longer can company leaders get together once a year to identify risks, then “put them in a drawer” to discuss 12 months later, she said.

For more on the growing interconnectedness of risk, click here.—AZ

Just like when you’re randomly reassigned to a middle seat on a long flight, sometimes a downgrade can have an immediately bad impact.

On Friday, ratings agency Moody’s downgraded the credit rating of the US, saying that “successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs.”

The direct callout to a lack of fiscal prudence didn’t seem accidental to some. “With tax cuts and tariffs hanging in the balance, Moody’s appears to be sending a message that it thinks these policy changes will, on net, put the US on an even worse fiscal trajectory,” Bank of America Economist Aditya Bhave in a note, per CNBC. “That is, tariff revenues won’t fully offset the cost of the proposed tax bill. We agree.”

The Moody’s downgrade followed a larger trend, as Moody’s became the last of the three major credit rating agencies to issue a downgrade.

By Monday, the market was clearly reacting. Investors dropped bonds, sending treasury yields higher. The 30-year Treasury yield jumped to the 5% range, near a November 2023 recent peak, while the 10-year yield hit just above 4.5%.

Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates founder and billionaire, warned that the risk could be sharper than what the recent downgrade encompasses.

Click here for more on the US credit downgrade.—NP

Remember when “buy now, pay later” company Klarna partnered with DoorDash and everyone said that people wanting to pay for food on layaway was a recession indicator? Well, that might not have actually been one, but this might be.

Klarna reported $99 million in losses for the first quarter of 2025, more than double what it lost last year over the same period. It also delayed its US IPO, citing market uncertainty from the Trump administration’s tariff policies.

On the other hand, the company also reported a 13% increase in revenue and reached an important milestone: 100 million active users.

Buy now, pay later platforms should have recession protection, as usage of their products usually increases when people are in financial stress or economic uncertainty. According to a survey from LendingTree, more people are using financing options to pay for groceries, up from 14% last year to 25% in 2025.

Keep reading here.—JK