What is the essence of risk management in one sentence?

Determine risks, transparently evaluate the risk level, and act so that risk drops to an acceptable level — not zero.

The essence has two complementary aims:

• Maximise the areas where we have some control over the outcome.
• Minimise the areas where we have no control over the outcome.

Why "acceptable" not "zero":

• Zero risk = zero activity. A business that takes no risk creates no value.
• The job of risk management is not to eliminate risk but to make it conscious, owned, and within appetite.
• Some level of risk is the price of doing business — risk management makes sure you're paying that price knowingly, not blindly.

Why "transparent" matters:

• A risk you can't explain in writing to the board doesn't really exist for governance.
• Transparency forces the maths to be defensible — others can challenge inputs, which improves quality.