The Governance Gap: Why Top-Down Risk Management is Critical
McKinsey's latest research reveals a striking gap between GRC aspiration and implementation reality, making the case for top-down approaches to risk management.
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I'm Brian Fending, a technology leader with extensive experience in executive IT leadership for startups and enterprises.
About Me
With over 25 years of experience in the technology sector, I've led engineering teams and architected solutions for startups and enterprises of all sizes. My expertise spans cloud infrastructure, data engineering, application development, new product development process, and building scalable processes and systems.
My Approach
I believe in pragmatic engineering practices that balance innovation with reliability, and progress with governance. My leadership style emphasizes the paramount importance of mentorship, continuous learning, and creating an environment where engineers and designers can do their best work while staying aligned with business objectives. I also believe that AI is a powerful tool with which to increase both release velocity and stability, and that when using it in systems design architecture validation with proper separation of concerns always comes first.
Services
I've contributed as both a consultant to and in-house leadership for many orgs and newcos, typically in an SVP, CTO, or CIO role. The services that I personally deliver span technology strategy, GRC, engineering leadership, software architecture, AI transformation, and various forms of hands-on development. So if you or your org are looking to optimize your current systems, build new capabilities (including governance and cyber-response!), or improve engineering processes, I can partner to help guide your organization to success.
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Recent Articles
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The Matrix Approach to Incremental DRP and BCP Review
A multi-dimensional framework for maintaining disaster recovery and business continuity plans through incremental reviews, addressing the gap between documentation and actual recovery capabilities.
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A Risk Management Analysis of Google's A2A and Anthropic's MCP
Examining how traditional risk frameworks apply to emerging AI technologies, with a focus on agent-to-agent communication systems and multi-context planning.
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