AI governance without illusion.
Most fintechs are deploying AI with no formal governance — no inventory, no named ownership, no evidence trail. ControlGrid is the control system that changes that, before the examiner asks.
Built by Timothy L. Harper Sr.— Senior Technical Program Manager with 15+ years delivering privacy, safety, security, and regulated-cloud programs at Google, Hulu, and leading institutions. MS, Computer & Network Security.
The Risk Is Real
Mid-market fintechs are deploying AI across credit decisioning, fraud detection, and underwriting — with no formal inventory, no named accountability, and no evidence trail for regulators.
CFPB Inquiry — Credit Scoring Model
Examiner requests documentation for your AI-assisted credit decisioning system. Who owns the risk? What controls are in place? When was it last reviewed? Without ControlGrid, the answer is a spreadsheet, three Slack threads, and a two-week scramble.
Audit Committee — AI Risk Briefing
Board asks for an AI risk summary ahead of the audit committee. No maturity score. No governance trail. No named accountability chain.That's not a governance gap — that's a liability.
What's typically missing
“AI governance is not a policy.
It is a control system for decision-making at scale.”
Five Core Questions
Every AI governance failure traces back to one unanswered question. ControlGrid operationalizes the complete answer to all five — structured, enforced, and audit-ready.
What AI systems exist?
Complete org-wide inventory with shadow AI detection — every system registered, classified, and visible to the CISO.
AI InventoryWhat risks do they create?
Structured risk register with severity × likelihood scoring across technical, regulatory, ethical, operational, and data dimensions.
Risk RegisterWho owns those risks?
Named Business Owner, Technical Owner, and Risk Owner required per system — enforced at intake as a blocking gate.
Ownership EngineWhat controls mitigate them?
50+ NIST AI RMF-aligned controls with named owners and due dates. Evidence thresholds enforced by risk tier before acceptance.
Controls LibraryHow is governance proven?
Append-only audit trail, regulatory evidence package export, and board-ready executive brief — generated in one click.
Evidence EngineHow It Works
The same structured governance workflow applies to every AI system — whether evaluated before deployment or already running in production without governance.
System Intake & Registration
Every AI system formally registered — use case, data types, model source, autonomy level, and regulatory exposure captured at intake. Three named owners required before any system proceeds. Missing ownership is a UI and API-enforced blocking gate.
Org-Wide AI Inventory
Registered systems appear in the org-wide inventory — filterable by risk level, owner, status, and regulatory framework. Shadow AI flagged as unregistered and surfaced to the CISO immediately.
Risk Assessment & Scoring
Structured risk entry with 5-dimension scoring. AI-generated risk narratives in plain English with concrete failure scenarios. Regulatory frameworks auto-mapped — CFPB, SR 11-7, NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act, FCRA.
Controls Assignment & Evidence
Controls from the NIST-aligned library assigned per risk with named owners and due dates. Evidence thresholds enforced by tier — CRITICAL requires 3 documents. Acceptance blocked until thresholds are met.
Multi-Stakeholder Approval
HIGH risks trigger 3 parallel approval workflows — Risk Owner, Legal, Security — all must approve. Formal declaration with named accountability, acceptance basis, and next review date. A digital governance certificate, not a checkbox.
Executive Brief & Audit Evidence
Board-ready PDF from live platform data — Governance Maturity Score, risk heatmap, control completion rate, 30/60/90-day trend lines. Regulatory evidence package downloadable in under 60 seconds for examiner delivery.
Ready to govern your AI systems?
The 90-Day Audit takes you from zero to audit-ready — led by the founder, not a junior consultant.
Why ControlGrid
Fintech-native regulatory precision
SR 11-7, CFPB, FCRA, and OCC guidance mapped into every workflow — not bolted on as labels. Horizontal platforms cannot replicate this without a complete rebuild.
Upstream of every tool you already use
ControlGrid operates before Vanta, before ServiceNow, before Credo AI. It's the governance foundation those tools assume already exists — and usually doesn't.
Append-only audit trail by design
Every governance action — intake, risk, approval, rejection — is timestamped, attributed, and immutable at the ORM layer. Not a log. A legal record.
Governance Maturity Score
Five-level weakest-link model. One unaddressed system holds back your entire org's maturity. Boards see a letter grade and a trend — not a status report.
Consulting-led, not self-serve
Every engagement starts with the 90-Day AI Governance Readiness Audit. Governance infrastructure requires expert activation — not a setup wizard and a free trial.
Evidence packages, one click
What previously took 2–3 weeks of manual assembly is a downloadable ZIP, current as of this morning. Controls, approvals, evidence, regulatory mapping — always ready.
Regulatory Coverage
Risk categories automatically map to applicable frameworks at intake. No manual cross-referencing. No consultants needed to translate.
Common Questions
No. ControlGrid is a governance layer, not infrastructure. It does not connect to your models, access your training data, or require changes to your ML pipeline. Your credit scoring model, fraud system, and underwriting engine continue to operate exactly as they do today. ControlGrid is where you record, review, approve, and track the governance around those systems.
ControlGrid uses multi-tenant architecture with org-level data isolation enforced on every database query, an append-only audit trail that is immutable at the ORM layer, and encryption in transit and at rest. Enterprise SSO via SAML is on the roadmap. We're glad to walk through our current security architecture in detail during an initial conversation.
Vanta and similar tools assume your AI governance already exists — they certify and audit against controls you've defined. ControlGrid is the layer that creates those controls in the first place: the inventory, risk register, ownership, and approval trail. It operates upstream of Vanta, ServiceNow, and Credo AI, producing the governed foundation those tools depend on.
A fully configured ControlGrid instance, a complete AI system inventory with three named owners per system, a scored risk register mapped to applicable regulatory frameworks, assigned controls with evidence, a Governance Maturity Score, and a regulatory evidence package you can hand to an examiner on Day 90. The engagement converts to an ongoing SaaS subscription.
ControlGrid is built fintech-first — the regulatory depth (SR 11-7, CFPB, FCRA, OCC) is native, not generic. That said, the same governance engine serves any regulated organization deploying AI: regional banks, InsurTech, and compliance consultancies delivering AI audit services at scale. If you're regulated and deploying AI, it applies.
Entry Point
Every ControlGrid engagement begins here. A structured, consulting-led audit that inventories your AI systems, assesses governance maturity, maps regulatory exposure, and delivers a fully configured platform — in 90 days.
At Day 90, you have a live ControlGrid instance, a Governance Maturity Score, a complete risk register with named accountability, and an evidence package ready for an examiner today. The audit converts to a SaaS subscription.
Opens your email client. No forms, no sales queue — direct to the founder.
We respond within one business day.
Not ready to talk?
A printable self-assessment worksheet that benchmarks your organization against the five-level governance maturity model — in about 10 minutes. See exactly where your gaps are before you commit to anything.
Download the Scorecard (PDF)