A War Game Exercise for Treasurers Led by Retired Military Brass
# Risk Management
# Geopolitics
A new video shows Academy Securities advisors leading NeuGroup members in scenario planning a U.S. conflict with Venezuela.
In a new NeuGroup video you can watch by clicking here or hitting the play button below, Lieutenant General (Ret.) John Evans and Vice Admiral (Ret.) Kelly Aeschbach lead treasurers in a war game exercise at the fall meeting of NeuGroup for Large-Cap and Mid-Cap Treasurers sponsored by Academy Securities, a veteran-owned investment bank. The general and admiral are members of Academy’s Geopolitical Intelligence Group.
The goal of the exercise: to hone planning, preparation and response skills surrounding a geopolitical crisis and think through the implications for the U.S. as well as multinational corporations and their global workforces.
The crisis scenario. The scenario planning began with an initial threat brief outlining real-life developments leading up to the “Crisis in Venezuela,” including U.S. forces striking suspected drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean. Academy then divided NeuGroup members into two teams, one led by the general, the other by the admiral.
In phase one of the exercise, members discussed the likely events and outcomes in the first three days after a Venezuelan pilot fires on a U.S. Navy destroyer, which retaliates and downs the F-16 fighter jet.
In the second phase, taking place four to seven days after the F-16 incident, the teams debated possible developments involving other countries. One group grappled with China’s potential response to the conflict while the other considered the effects of Russia’s involvement.
Lieutenant General Evans and Vice Admiral Aeschbach then recapped the decisions reached by each team.
The value of the exercise. Bret Lowry, a former Surface Warfare Naval Officer, leads Academy’s Geopolitical Intelligence Group and ran the exercise. He said war game scenario planning can help clients prepare and react to geopolitical and other crises. Asking the right questions can prompt actions that benefit leaders and their companies. For example:
“How can I basically be able to tell my boss six months from now, I saw something like this coming in a part of the world, I decided to take these steps to de-risk, or these steps to make sure that those employees would be well taken care of if we had to get people out of country,” he said.
Mr. Lowry sees other lessons learned from military experience that may serve finance leaders. They include trusting the people on the “front lines” if they say, for example, “We should hold off on making this investment in this facility right now; or maybe we should hold off and become a little more aggressive on the risk front in this country or in this region. Listen to your people because they’re likely hearing what’s happening on the ground.”
The member perspective. One treasurer who participated in the exercise said, “I think each of us has faced crisis situations where our organization set up a ‘war room’ for key decision-makers to assess fluid and incomplete information. Going through the war game session helped put things in proper perspective.”
He added, “I find exercises like this extremely valuable to reinforce the concept of constructive debate, to play out the potential implications of various courses of action the team may make to come up with the best decision possible with the limited information available.”
