Ayoub Fandi

In this latest article, Ayoub Fandi dissects a familiar but rarely challenged flaw in many GRC programs: controls designed to satisfy auditors first and protect the business second. Drawing on real-world examples from access management, vulnerability management, and application security, Fandi argues that compliance-driven control design too often results in security theater and controls that generate clean audit evidence while leaving real risks untouched. He makes the case for flipping that priority, showing how controls built around actual threats and business risk naturally produce compliance as an outcome, not an objective.

Ayoub Fandi’s latest contribution to the GRC Report examines how organizations can transform their GRC programs from compliance-focused operations into risk-driven decision engines. He breaks down why the traditional model falls short and presents a practical, engineering-led framework that shifts the focus toward measurable risk reduction and meaningful business impact.

In this piece, Ayoub Fandi breaks down why so many enterprise GRC programs struggle with the gap between documented controls and real-world execution. He explains how control orchestration closes that gap by shifting GRC from a paperwork exercise to an operational engine, one that drives consistent execution, strengthens security posture, and delivers clearer, real-time visibility into what’s actually happening across the organization.

In this article, Ayoub Fandi breaks down why so many organizations still treat GRC as a yearly project tied to audits rather than as a strategic product that continuously delivers value. By reframing GRC as something that evolves, improves, and serves real users across the business, he illustrates how organizations can reduce manual effort, improve their security posture, and align risk management with decision-making. The goal is to move beyond compliance checklists, and instead build a living, continuous GRC program that drives resilience and supports the business every day, not just during audit season.

In his latest article, Ayoub Fandi breaks down how organisations can overcome fragmented risk and compliance systems by building a unified central data layer. He explains how this approach enables consistency, clarity, and smarter decision-making across modern GRC ecosystems that are too often siloed by tools and disconnected data.

In his piece, Ayoub Fandi dives into the hidden cracks of modern GRC programs, where siloed tools, mismatched taxonomies, and broken information flows leave organizations vulnerable. Drawing on his engineering background and his work leading GitLab’s Security Assurance Automation team, Fandi makes the case for treating GRC like infrastructure, something that needs careful architecture before automation. Through practical insights and a clear-eyed critique of today’s compliance practices, he reframes GRC as a system that can scale with the speed of modern business.