Who owns risk in the enterprise?

CISOs, GRC, and risk leaders must collaborate to ensure risk management isn’t overlooked

Kaitlyn Archibald
Product Marketing Director
September 26, 2025

CISO: Guarding the digital core
Head of GRC: Bridging policy and execution
Head of Risk: Building resilience into the process
Unified risk responsibility
Elevating risk management with OneTrust

Risk is everywhere. Internally, externally. Third parties, nth parties. From the mail room to the boardroom.

So who owns risk management in the enterprise? Who in your organization is tasked with ensuring that risk — unavoidable to a certain degree — does not sprawl or create noncompliance and security issues?

For many highly regulated industries — such as Financial Services — there’s a clear structure and hierarchy pointing to the Chief Risk Officer or (CRO). But for organizations across other industries, the answer isn’t a single person; It’s a network of leaders working together, often with indirect or fragmented ownership.

At the center of this network are three critical personas: the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), the Head of Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC), and the Head of (Enterprise) Risk. Each brings a distinct perspective and responsibility, yet their roles must align to achieve a shared goal: building a resilient, compliant, and risk-aware enterprise.

Let’s take a look at how each role should be assessing and addressing risk within their organization.

CISO: Guarding the digital core

The CISO’s role as a visible figure in enterprise risk management has elevated, particularly as cyber threats dominate boardroom conversations in recent years. Their primary mandate is to protect the organization — traditionally by protecting critical assets, including data, systems, and infrastructure, while ensuring security does not become a barrier to innovation.

Managing risk and compliance throughout the company’s technology ecosystem enables CISOs to take this balancing act further by embedding compliance across multiple frameworks and streamlining risk identification, assessment, and remediation. Instead of scrambling to meet audit demands, CISOs can use their risk and compliance program to their advantage, demonstrating continuous improvement in security posture.

Key contributions of the CISO in risk management include:

Cyber risk reduction: Building strategies to lower the likelihood and impact of attacks.
Incident response and recovery: Coordinating rapid, effective responses to minimize disruption.
Compliance assurance: Meeting obligations across diverse regulatory and industry frameworks.
Board-level confidence: Translating technical risk into business language for executives and directors.

The CISO owns the technology risk pillar of enterprise resilience. By leveraging TRC, they can move from reactive firefighting to proactive protection, building trust in cybersecurity strategies while driving innovation forward.

Head of GRC: Bridging policy and execution

While the CISO is often focused on data, technology and threats, the Head of GRC plays a crucial role in aligning enterprise policies, controls, and compliance frameworks. This leader is tasked with ensuring that governance structures and risk management practices are not only designed effectively but are also executed consistently across the enterprise.

Automation empowers Heads of GRC by streamlining compliance processes, reducing redundancies, and delivering auditable results. GRC leaders can implement enterprise frameworks seamlessly and ensure compliance obligations are met with fewer penalties or disruptions.

Core responsibilities for the Head of GRC:

Policy operationalization: Translating high-level governance standards into actionable controls.
Enterprise alignment: Ensuring policies are applied consistently across departments, geographies, and functions.
Audit readiness: Maintaining strong compliance documentation and evidence to pass audits confidently.
Stakeholder transparency: Delivering timely, accurate reporting to executives, regulators, and business partners.

The Head of GRC is the connective tissue of enterprise risk management, bridging the gap between policies and execution — with reportable insights across operations. Deploying automation as part of their risk and compliance posture, they ensure governance frameworks are not only designed but enabled throughout the organization.

Head of Risk: Building resilience into the process

The Head of Risk takes the broadest view of all. Unlike the CISO or Head of GRC, whose focus is often tied to security and compliance, the Head of Risk is charged with overseeing strategic and enterprise-wide risks. From market volatility and supply chain disruption to geopolitical uncertainty, this role ensures that risk considerations are informed based on the organizational goals and integrated into core business decisions.

Risk and compliance management enables this position to reduce risk exposure within defined appetites, while embedding actionable insights into business strategy. It provides the visibility needed to identify high-risk events early and mitigate them before they escalate into enterprise-level crises.

The Head of Risk’s responsibilities typically include:

Enterprise risk strategy: Defining and managing risk appetite in line with business objectives.
Risk-aware culture: Embedding risk awareness into day-to-day decision-making.
Strategic alignment: Ensuring risk considerations support growth, innovation, and competitive advantage.
Stakeholder assurance: Delivering transparency and confidence to boards, investors, and regulators.

The Head of Risk ensures that the organization is not blindsided by threats outside the technology or compliance domains. With compliance automation, they can integrate insights across silos, fostering resilience and confidence across the enterprise.

Unified risk responsibility

While each role has a distinct mandate, risk management in the modern enterprise is not siloed. The CISO, Head of GRC, and Head of Risk must collaborate to create an integrated, proactive approach. Alignment ensures that risk practices reinforce each other, rather than working in silos.

This is where elevating your risk and compliance program becomes essential. A platform like OneTrust empowers all three leaders to act with shared visibility, aligned goals, and continuous improvement.

CISOs can leverage risk as a reporting language to the board to communicate while enabling innovation
Heads of GRC achieve enterprise alignment and seamless compliance execution.
Heads of Risk can integrate actionable insights into business strategy and sustain a risk-aware culture.

Together, these roles form the backbone of a resilient enterprise. But their collective success depends on a technology risk and compliance program that unifies data, insights, and actions across the organization.

Elevating risk management with OneTrust

Leaders don’t own risk outright — it is a shared responsibility. But the enterprise needs clear lines of accountability and the right tools to operationalize best practices. OneTrust Tech Risk & Compliance provides that foundation, enterprise leaders to be decisive while working toward a common purpose: building a resilient, compliant, and future-ready enterprise.

As the regulatory environment tightens and risk landscapes evolve, the need to elevate your technology risk and compliance program has never been greater. By aligning leadership roles and empowering them with OneTrust, organizations can move beyond reactive compliance into proactive, strategic resilience.

Whether you have an established enterprise risk management system, or are working toward one, this webinar will outline the blueprint needed to work toward maturity. Learn more here.

Who owns risk in the enterprise?

Table of contents

CISO: Guarding the digital core

Head of GRC: Bridging policy and execution

Head of Risk: Building resilience into the process

Unified risk responsibility

Elevating risk management with OneTrust

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