Enterprise Risk & Compliance Framework
Archer Knox connects governance, risk, compliance, investigations, and security into a single operating picture—so leaders aren’t guessing whether controls work, and counsel isn’t defending a patchwork of exceptions.
We map how risk actually flows through your organization: where decisions are made, where controls live, and where failure is most likely to surface—then design a framework that can be operated, not just presented.
What a working framework looks like
- Clear risk owners and decision rights
- Controls tied to real-world behavior
- Evidence that audits can actually use
- Playbooks for when controls fail
Our goal: make it easy to show regulators, boards, or courts that you knew the risks and acted responsibly.
From policy shelf to operational reality
One view that connects governance, operations, and enforcement.
We start by building a simple, defensible map: who sets expectations, who runs controls, who investigates, and who ultimately answers for outcomes. Every element of the framework sits somewhere on that map.
Direction & Expectations
Boards, committees, and executive leadership set risk appetite, policies, and oversight requirements.
- Charters & delegations
- Risk appetite statements
- Policy hierarchy & ownership
Where Risk Actually Lives
Business units, security, and operations own day-to-day controls and monitoring.
- Control design & mapping
- Key risk & control indicators
- Continuous monitoring strategy
Standards & Interpretations
Compliance and legal translate regulations into enforceable rules, then test whether they hold.
- Regulatory mapping & overlays
- Testing & assurance cycles
- Policy exceptions & approvals
When Something Breaks
Internal investigations, security, and crisis teams handle incidents, misconduct, and escalations.
- Intake & triage patterns
- Chain-of-custody & evidence
- Remediation & program uplift
Engagement model
From discovery to a framework you can defend.
We treat your environment like an investigation: interview, evidence, reconstruction. The output is a framework that matches how your organization actually functions—not how a generic maturity model thinks it should.
Current-State Mapping
Identify how risk decisions are made today: committees, policies, approvals, and informal workarounds.
- Stakeholder interviews
- Policy & control inventory
- Incident & audit review
Risk & Control Alignment
Map top risks to the controls, monitoring, and escalation paths that should address them.
- Risk → control mapping
- Coverage & gap analysis
- Ownership & decision rights
Framework Design
Define the components of your enterprise risk & compliance framework and how they interact.
- Governance model & committees
- Reporting & escalation routes
- Exception & risk acceptance process
Operationalization & Evidence
Translate the framework into playbooks and artifacts that stand up to internal or external review.
- Board- and regulator-ready views
- Playbooks for high-risk workflows
- Metrics, logs, and audit trails
Outputs
A framework that leadership, legal, and regulators can all read.
We deliberately design artifacts for different audiences: board and executives, compliance and legal, and the teams who have to operate controls and investigations day-to-day.
- Enterprise risk & compliance framework map with clear ownership
- Documented risk-to-control mappings and key control narratives
- Policy exception and risk acceptance structure
- Escalation and investigations model tied to your incident intake
- Recommendations for metrics, dashboards, and ongoing oversight
For clients using Knox, we also align the framework to case structures, workflows, and evidence handling so your digital infrastructure mirrors your governance model.
Key questions your framework should answer
- What are our top enterprise risks—and who owns each?
- How do we know our controls are working right now?
- What happens when a control fails or someone raises a concern?
- Where is this documented in a way we can show others?
If those answers aren’t consistent across teams, you don’t have a framework—you have a collection of efforts.
Next: Operational Playbooks
Once the framework is set, we push it down into concrete, defensible playbooks.