How much is top-notch risk management worth? Try $400,000 a day.

That's how much Reuters [2] estimates Merrill Lynch will pay Thomas Montag to head up its global sales and trading -- a post Montag formerly held with Goldman Sachs. Montag is credited with helping Goldman Sachs avoid the staggering write-downs (and loss of value) that has hurt many financial services firms, including Merrill. In other words, he's The Man when it comes to balancing risk and opportunity.

The publications that cover Wall Street talent have featured Montag's signing payout and salary (as well as the reported $50 million in Goldman Sachs equity holdings Merrill will buy out for Montag), but I'd like to think this staggering pay reflects the premium financial services firms are willing to pay for 21st Century Risk Management.

Granted, there has to be a better name for it; what I'm referring to is the ability to balance and blend risk management with growth -- to understand risk, seek out the most profitable risks, and pay for them while avoiding the bad risks. Again, there's a better way to put this, just open up Mercer Oliver Wyman Director Adrian Slywotsky's book The Upside: The 7 Strategies for Turning Big Threats into Growth Breakthroughs (Crown Business, 2007).

Putting the insights in the book into practices begins with a Big Question: What are the seven to 10 biggest risks that can kill our business? Slywotzky, who I interviewed last week, says that when he asks audiences around the world how many of their companies have asked this question, less than 12 percent of the hands in the room go up. Would yours?