GRC Lead: Tech Risk & Controls Modernization

Cognizant; Olympia (WA); On-site; USD 137,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance

Paid holidays plus PTO

401(k) plan

Long-term/Short-term Disability

Paid Parental Leave

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Cognizant is seeking an experienced GRC Lead to drive assessment, rationalization, and modernization of technology operational controls in a large financial services setting. You will lead control assessments, workshops, validate control effectiveness, and translate findings into actionable modernization strategies.

The ideal candidate has 10+ years in technology risk and IT audit within regulated banking environments, plus experience with governance, risk, and compliance tools and frameworks.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in Technology Risk, IT Audit, GRC, or related fields.
• Experience in banking/financial services control assessments.
• Ability to map risks to controls with evidence and validation.
• Familiarity with FFIEC, COBIT, NIST, ITGC standards.
• Strong documentation and stakeholder communication.
• Experience with control rationalization and modernization.
• Certifications such as CISA, CRISC, CIA, CGEIT, CISSP preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead the assessment and rationalization of technology operational controls, validating design, effectiveness, ownership, risk alignment, and evidence requirements.
• Review control inventories and conduct evaluations to identify gaps, overlap, duplication, and optimization opportunities.
• Facilitate workshops with control owners, technology teams, risk and compliance stakeholders.
• Develop recommendations to retain, consolidate, enhance, or retire controls based on risk coverage.
• Update control definitions, ownership models, scope statements, frequencies, and evidence expectations.
• Ensure recommendations align with FFIEC, COBIT, NIST, and enterprise risk standards.
• Identify automation opportunities across control execution, evidence collection, testing, monitoring, and compliance.
• Develop assessment findings, rationalization matrices, refreshed control sets, and roadmap inputs.
• Support validation activities and ensure traceability to business objectives.
• Perform quality reviews of control documentation and consultant deliverables.
• Contribute to governance presentations and findings reports for future-state control transformation.
• Partner with delivery leadership to drive risk reduction and audit readiness.

Skills

Technology Risk

IT Audit

GRC

Controls Transformation

Risk Assessment

Stakeholder Management

Documentation

Workshop Facilitation

Automation Opportunities

GRC Tools

Tools

ServiceNow GRC

Archer

MetricStream

OpenPages

Job description

Cognizant is seeking an experienced GRC Lead to drive assessment, rationalization, and modernization of technology operational controls in a large financial services setting. You will lead control assessments, workshops, validate control effectiveness, and translate findings into actionable modernization strategies.

The ideal candidate has 10+ years in technology risk and IT audit within regulated banking environments, plus experience with governance, risk, and compliance tools and frameworks.