Risk is intrinsic in all human assignments, activities, tasks and enterprises, irrespective of size. One of the most common causes of operation failures is human error and more specifically the inability to reliably manage corporate risk in a holistic manner. Entrepreneurs are familiar with the term risk management mostly as a financial management tool, which is usually associated with the monitoring of specific financial indicators or cash flows. Business executives are responsible for managing corporate risk in all tasks, while leaders at different levels are responsible for ensuring that proper procedures are in place and that appropriate resources are available for their employees to perform assigned business tasks.Risk management as a separate organizational unit tends to prevail in global enterprises controlling whole sectors such as finance, IT, legal, internal audit control, occupational safety and health and security. The importance of corporate operational risk attracted international attention twenty five years ago. The management of operational risk has become a practical concern for many operations in the extractive industries. CITATION:Kamenopoulos, S and Agioutantis, Z, 2019. A theoretical holistic risk management model for mining operations, in Proceedings 9th International Conference on Sustainable Development in the Minerals Industry, pp 8588 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).