Following the feast of much of the previous decade, and the subsequent indigestion during the financial crisis, boards' risk appetite has finally returned. But this appetite has changed. Now, few corporates would dare take major decisions without an intense focus on risk management. In past, arguably risk management was less of a priority than it is today.

Ed Ainsworth, co-found of 4C consultants, says this is not necessarily because companies were less responsible pre-crisis. Instead, the crisis has highlighted risks that would not have been thought of six years ago. For example, then chancellor Gordon Brown declared the end of boom and bust in 1997, and many companies simply didn't see an end to the cheap and abundant credit on offer.

"If you'd asked companies a few years ago, they would have said they were risk averse," Ainsworth recently told delegates at the Economist CFO Summit. "People hadn't realised how much risk they had been running, whether it was the changing economy or potential issues with their supplier."

The financial crisis has brought with it a greater understanding of potential risks. Ian McHoul, chief financial officer of FTSE 100 engineer Amec, says this new understanding has changed CFOs' risk priorities.

"We all sit around and do risk registers around a business," he tells CFO delegates. "Typically there is a box called 'catastrophic consequences that have a very low likelihood'. Historically, there hasn't been much focus on this box. Now there is."