You Are What You Risk—Unpacking the Silicon Valley Bank Collapse & Gray Rhino with Global Best-Selling Author & Risk Expert Michele Wucker

Michele Wucker is a strategic advisor and best-selling author who coined the term “gray rhino” as a call to take a fresh look at obvious, probable, impactful risks that give us a choice to act or not. Her insights help to explain why some people step up to head off the dangers right in front of their eyes, yet others let themselves and those around them get trampled.

Michele introduced the gray rhino at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2013. It inspired her third book, the influential global best-seller, THE GRAY RHINO: How to Recognize and Act on Obvious Dangers We Ignore, in 2016. Drawing on her earlier work as a global economic policy analyst, financial journalist, and think tank executive, she is founder and CEO of the Chicago-based advisory firm Gray Rhino & Company to help business and policy decision makers to use gray rhino theory to improve their risk responses. 

To her great surprise, Michele’s readers encouraged her to apply the concept to more personal issues. Her 2019 TED Talk about using the gray rhino in personal life has attracted more than 2.5 million views. Her newest book, YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World, builds on insights into personality and societal influences on how and why different people respond to looming risks the way we do.

The gray metaphor made headlines around the world as a framework for the ignored warnings for the COVID-19 pandemic and has appeared in media in more than 70 countries and 35 languages and counting. It has sent tremors through global stock markets when Chinese officials warned of gray rhino financial risks. Central banks and securities regulators around the world use gray rhino theory, as do business strategists, boards of directors, business continuity and emergency management professionals, insurers, ESG specialists, and policy makers focused on everything from national security to climate change.

The concept also inspired a lyric in the hit single, “Blue & Grey,” by the global mega-K-Pop phenomenon BTS. It also has inspired characters in a video game and an experimental jazz single in Japan, and a dance choreography in Australia. The gray rhino also has appeared in the pages of books by respected historians and diplomats, a Brazilian self-help book, and a science fiction novel.

Michele speaks regularly to high-level audiences on risk management, the global economy, and decision-making, and is quoted often in leading media. She has been recognized as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a Guggenheim Fellow, among other honors.