For a long time, seeing someone or hearing their voice gave us a reasonable level of confidence that we knew who we were dealing with. If your manager called, you recognized their voice. If a senior executive joined a video meeting, you could see them on the screen. There was usually little reason to question whether the person you were speaking to was actually who they claimed to be.
The more time I've spent working in Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), the more I've realized that a good risk assessment is rarely about preventing something from happening. It's about understanding what could happen, deciding whether the organization is comfortable with that level of risk, and making sure the right controls are in place before moving forward. That is a very different conversation.
Whenever I tell people that I work in Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), the reaction is usually the same. “So, you spend your day writing policies?” It’s a fair question because, from the outside, that’s exactly what GRC looks like. Before I started working in this field, I probably would have said the same thing. The reality is very different.