Ask any board member what keeps them up at night, and somewhere on the list you will find the same three words: governance, risk, and compliance. Regulators expect it, investors ask about it, and business schools now teach it as a single discipline rather than three separate ones — because in practice, an organisation that gets one of them wrong usually gets all three wrong.

This training course from the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy treats governance, risk management, and compliance as one connected system rather than three checklists. Participants work through how boards and committees are structured, how risk is identified and responded to, and how compliance policies stay current as regulations shift — then bring it all together with the internal controls and technology that hold the system in place.

Who Should Attend?

• Board members and executive leadership responsible for organisational oversight.
• Financial managers, internal and external auditors.
• HR managers and department heads involved in policy enforcement.
• Anyone building a career in governance, risk, or compliance.

By the End of the Course, You Will Be Able To:

• Apply governance principles and link them to measurable organisational performance.
• Identify, assess, and respond to risk using practical, proven frameworks.
• Build and maintain a compliance program that keeps pace with changing law.
• Use internal controls, auditing, and technology to hold the whole GRC system together.

• Module 1: Why Governance, Risk, and Compliance Belong Together

  • The concept of an integrated GRC system and why treating it as one system improves performance.
  • Where good governance ends and poor governance begins.
  • The role of leadership in holding governance, risk, and compliance together.

• Module 2: Governance Structures That Actually Work

  • Defining governance and its objectives inside an organisation.
  • Organisational structure and management roles in governance.
  • Local and international legislation shaping governance today.

• Module 3: The Board, Its Committees, and Executive Management

  • The board's role and how to structure it for transparency.
  • Audit, risk, and strategic committees and what each one actually does.
  • Keeping a healthy balance of power between the board and executive management.

• Module 4: Understanding Risk Before It Becomes a Crisis

  • Defining risk and the types organisations commonly face.
  • Why risk management drives organisational performance, not just protects it.
  • The practical challenges organisations run into when managing risk.

• Module 5: Identifying, Assessing, and Responding to Risk

  • Tools and methods for identifying risk across the organisation.
  • Qualitative and quantitative risk assessment.
  • The four responses to risk: avoid, mitigate, transfer, or accept.

• Module 6: Building an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) System

  • What an ERM system is and the steps to implement one.
  • Tools and techniques used in enterprise-wide risk management.
  • Monitoring and updating a risk management plan over time.

• Module 7: Compliance — Concept, Laws, and Policy

  • Defining compliance and how it differs from governance.
  • Local and international laws that shape a compliance program.
  • Translating law into internal policy that people can actually follow.

• Module 8: Designing and Sustaining a Compliance Framework

  • Building organisational compliance policies from the ground up.
  • Tools for monitoring compliance day to day.
  • Reviewing and updating policy as legislation changes.

• Module 9: Internal Control and Auditing

  • Internal control's role in supporting compliance.
  • The difference between internal and external auditing.
  • Turning audit findings into improved governance and risk decisions.

• Module 10: Technology's Growing Role in GRC

  • Specialised software for governance, risk, and compliance.
  • Using big data and AI to identify and predict risk.
  • Digital transformation tools for governance and risk reporting.

• Module 11: The Obstacles to Getting This Right

  • Security and data-protection issues in an increasingly digital GRC environment.
  • Resistance to change and the challenge of adopting new systems.
  • Practical ways to get traditional organisations on board.

• Module 12: Building a Sustainable GRC Culture

  • Making governance, risk management, and compliance part of everyday culture, not a once-a-year exercise.
  • Leadership's role in sustaining the practice long-term.
  • Where governance, risk, and compliance are headed next.