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Advisory Service · Signature Practice

GRC Operating Model Design

For governance programs that are technically sound but organizationally broken. I design the ownership, workflows, and decision rights that make the program run, anchored to a capability model you can inspect before we start.

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What's included
  • Current-state assessment: interviews, artifacts, and where decisions actually stall
  • Capability mapping against the PivotRisk reference model
  • Ownership and RACI design across the three lines
  • Workflow and escalation path mapping
  • Governance forum design: charters, membership, decision rights
  • Risk taxonomy, scoring model, and appetite framework integration
  • A sequenced implementation roadmap your team can run without me
The problem

The control library is fine. Nobody can say who decides what.

You can have the best control library in the industry and still underperform. The programs that struggle usually have the same symptoms: findings that age instead of closing, escalations that route by personality instead of by path, committees that review but never decide, and a first line that experiences governance as something done to it. None of that is a framework problem. It is an operating model problem, and no amount of new tooling fixes it.

The moment of scrutiny arrives in every exam and every audit: who owns this risk, who decided this exception, and where is that written down? This engagement exists so that question has a one-page answer, because ownership was designed, not inherited.

The design work is anchored to the PivotRisk capability model, a public reference of what a GRC and resilience function must be able to do. You can inspect the starting point before you pay for the tailoring.

What the engagement covers

Six workstreams, from diagnosis to adoption

Current-state assessment

Interviews with the people who run and receive governance, review of the artifacts that exist, and a plain statement of where work actually stalls. The diagnosis names mechanisms, not people.

Capability and ownership design

Each capability mapped to an accountable owner across the three lines, using the reference model as the checklist so nothing is owned twice and nothing is owned by no one.

Workflow and escalation paths

How an issue moves from detection to decision, with named handoffs and time expectations, so escalation is a route, not a relationship.

Governance forum design

Charters, membership, cadence, and above all decision rights: what each forum is allowed to decide, so meetings end with decisions on record instead of another review.

Risk architecture

Taxonomy, scoring model, and appetite framework, integrated into the operating model rather than bolted on, so a threshold breach actually triggers the forum designed to hear it.

Roadmap and adoption

A sequenced plan for moving from current to designed state, built with your leaders in working sessions, because a model designed with people gets adopted and one delivered to them gets shelved.

What you walk away with

An org-chart question with a one-page answer

The operating model blueprint

Capabilities, owners, workflows, and forums in one document, written to be shown to an examiner, not just filed.

The RACI and escalation map

Who is accountable, who is consulted, and where an issue goes next at every step, on a page your first line can actually use.

Forum charters and decision rights

Each governance body chartered with what it decides, not just what it discusses.

The sequenced roadmap

The order of changes, the dependencies between them, and the early wins that fund the patience for the rest.

How it runs

Designed with your leaders, not delivered to them

Conversation

Where the program hurts, what has been tried, and whether the appetite for structural change is real. Honest answers save both of us time.

Assessment

Interviews and artifact review against the reference model. You see the diagnosis before any design work starts.

Design

Working sessions with the leaders who will own the model. Ownership, forums, workflows, and risk architecture take shape with the people accountable for them in the room.

Roadmap

The blueprint and sequenced plan handed over, with your team able to run it. Ongoing support is available as a fractional retainer if you want it.

Related reading

The thinking behind the service

Start with The GRC Operating Model Is the Program, then Regulatory Change Is an Operating Model Problem. If the articles read like your program, the engagement will feel familiar on day one.

Design the model your program deserves

Scope and price are set in the first conversation, sized to your organization.

Start a Conversation Explore the Capability Model