Trusted: The New GRC Playbook

Today’s GRC leaders aren’t just managing risk—they’re redefining how it fuels growth, innovation, and trust. The old playbook prioritized control and compliance in isolation. The new one integrates GRC into business strategy, balances governance with agility, and treats trust as a measurable, competitive advantage.

In this edition of Trusted, we’re spotlighting the evolving role of GRC leadership: navigating AI risk, aligning the C-suite and mid-level teams, and building programs that drive more than compliance—they drive impact. 

Let’s dive in.👇

DRATA BITS

The Drataverse City Tour is coming to you! We’re bringing together the top security and GRC leaders in San Francisco, New York, and London—request your seat today.

A CISO’s Take: How to Build (and Learn From) Your First GRC Program

Building a Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) program from the ground up is no small feat—but it’s one that Drata’s CISO, Matt Hillary, knows well. In this Q&A, Matt reflects on the early days of his security career, the lessons he learned while building his first GRC program, and how the landscape of security and compliance has evolved over the years.

Whether you're just starting out or refining a mature program, Matt’s insights offer practical advice and a candid look at the realities of getting GRC right. Here are some of the questions he answered:

• What would you say was the first big mistake you made, and what did it teach you?
• How has security culture changed over the years?
• How did you prioritize risks back then versus how you do it now?
• What advice would you give to someone building their first GRC program?

Check out the full interview here.

From Drata's Experts

The 98% Advantage: How Mature GRC Drives Business Success

By understanding the value of a mature GRC program, organizations can use their compliance posture to accelerate sales cycles and position themselves against competitors. We explore how in this blog post.

 C-Suite vs. Mid-Level: The AI Optimism Gap in GRC

As the mid-level employees work to implement their c-suite’s AI strategies, the two groups need to collaborate so that they can optimize the benefits while mitigating the risks. This article shares strategies.

Growth vs. Governance: The GRC Balancing Act

When you build compliance into your business strategy from the beginning, your governance capabilities can augment your business growth. Learn how here.

Spotlight on GRC: Navigating a New Era of Trust

In a recent Drata and Wakefield study, enterprise organizations report experiencing significant consequences due to inadequate compliance postures and processes, with 51% reporting brand safety and reputation issues and 49% reporting security and data breaches. Despite progress in GRC maturity, organizations still face major challenges in balancing compliance demands with evolving innovations and operational resilience.

Now, more than ever, building trust through Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) is critical to success. In this live webinar, we'll explore how GRC programs are transforming with the goal of earning and keeping the trust of customers, prospects and partners plus solutions to conquer day-to-day challenges.

This webinar with Drata, AWS, and Tealium explores:

• Trust and the current state of GRC.
• Strategies for tackling challenges.
• AI and automation.

SafeBase Spotlight

AI Declutter Mode: Activated

Let’s face it — your Knowledge Base can get a little… messy. With Knowledge Base Suggestions, AI does the cleanup for you:

✅ Automatically detects duplicate or conflicting answers (no more manual hunting)

✅ Flags inconsistencies to improve accuracy and trust

✅ Keeps your Knowledge Base clean, organized, and ready for action

Because a clean, consistent Knowledge Base is the quiet flex of every enterprise-ready team. 👉 Learn more

Ask SafeBase Anything — Now Live in Slack

We’re making it even easier to get the answers you need — right where you work.

Introducing /safebase-ask-ai, a new Slack command that lets you ask SafeBase AI questions directly in Slack and get instant GenAI-powered answers.

✅ Use /safebase-ask-ai [your question] anytime

✅ If you have multiple products, the Slackbot will prompt you to select one

✅ Available to all paying customers (excluding Foundation tier)

Heads-up: Make sure your Slack integration is configured to access this feature! Need help?

Smarter Search Starts Here

Meet Trust Library AI Search - A smarter way to find the exact doc or detail you need in seconds, whether you’re prepping for an audit or responding to a due diligence request. Get started →

Around the Web

CPPA to Hold Board Meeting on Proposed CCPA Regulations and DROP Requirements | Hunton

Europe’s privacy groups take on Big Tech with class action cases | Politico

North Korean hackers blamed for record spike in crypto thefts in 2025 | Tech Crunch

Secured Jobs

Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Analyst | Gusto | Scottsdale, AZ

Cybersecurity GRC - US Federal | Workday | McLean, VA

Program Manager, Integrity GRC | Meta | Bellevue, WA

Helpful Resources

Trusted is currently published twice a month and is designed to share the latest resources from around the compliance, risk management, and cybersecurity space. If you have suggestions or would like to include a recent article or podcast, please let us know.

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