Search Results

In today’s third party risk management (TPRM) environment, time is a scarce resource, and risk teams are feeling the pressure. As organizations grow their third party ecosystems and regulatory expectations rise, TPRM programs are expected to scale without receiving more people or budget.  That’s where automation can help.  But before jumping into technology solutions, practitioners often ask a crucial question:   “How do I know what to automate?”   Not everything is a good candidate. Some processes rely on deep judgment or require hands-on communication. But others, the repetitive, rules-based, time-consuming tasks, are perfect opportunities to automate and free up your team’s time for strategic risk management activities.  Let’s walk through how to spot automation use cases inside your own program, and hear how one risk leader turned hours of manual work into minutes of automated flow.  What Makes a Good Candidate for Automation?  Start with a simple lens. The best automation processes usually have these qualities:  High volume: Happens frequently across many third parties  Repetitive: Same steps followed every time  Rule-based: Decisions based on set criteria or logic  Low variation: Minimal case-by-case customization  Trackable: Easily measurable in terms of success or failure  If you’re doing a task over and over, and it doesn’t require nuanced human decision-making, it’s probably a strong automation candidate.  Common TPRM Automation Use Cases    Here are some of the most common areas where automation delivers real value:  1. Initial Third Party Intake & Risk Tiering   Automating the intake form and feeding third party and business owner responses directly into a tiering model saves time and reduces manual scoring errors. You can set rules to automatically assign low, medium, or high risk based on responses like data sensitivity or criticality.  2. Due Diligence Questionnaire Distribution   Rather than tracking who received what questionnaire; use automation to send the right assessment based on third party type and level of risk, trigger reminder emails, and flag when a response is overdue.  3. Policy & Document Collection   Stop chasing third parties manually for SOC reports, insurance certs, or data mapping. Use tools that auto-request, validate expiration dates, and flag missing documents before you notice.  4. Issue Remediation Workflows   If a third party fails a control assessment, automation can generate a ticket, assign it to the right risk owner, and send periodic follow-ups until it’s resolved or escalated.  5. Continuous Monitoring   Set thresholds and rules so that alerts from external monitoring platforms are filtered, prioritized, and routed to the right business owner and/or third party. Not every continuous monitoring alert needs to land in your inbox.  Real-World Example: Automating Third Party Risk Tiering  Case Study: Financial Services TPRM Team (Mid-Sized U.S. Bank)     A TPRM team supporting over 1,000 third parties struggled to keep up with onboarding. Each third party was manually risk-tiered by reviewing spreadsheets, pasting data into a scoring tool, and then having it double-checked by a second analyst.  “It was taking us 2 to 3 hours per vendor, just to assign a tier,” the risk lead told us.   By implementing an automation workflow using a TPRM platform, they built a rules engine tied to their intake questionnaire. Now, as third parties fill out intake forms, their answers auto-feed into a tiering model based on categories like access to sensitive data, cloud usage, and financial impact. The automation generates a tier instantly, flags high-risk vendors for human review, and logs everything for audit readiness.  Result:  Manual effort dropped from 3 hours to under 10 minutes  Analyst hours saved = ~50/month  More consistent tiering = stronger regulator confidence  How to Identify Automation Opportunities in Your Program  Start simple. Ask yourself and your team:  What process eats up the most time?  Are there tasks we do the same way every time?  Where do errors or delays occur?  What are we manually tracking in Excel or email?  What do we wish we had more time for (but don’t)?  Then, map out the steps. If you can diagram it on paper, chances are you can automate it.  Avoid These Common Pitfalls  Before automating, take these precautions:  Don’t automate a broken process. Fix inefficiencies first.  Avoid black-box logic [ a system or algorithm where the internal workings are not easily understood or accessible to the user ]. You still need visibility and traceability.  Keep humans in the loop for judgment calls or escalations.  Test in small batches before going wide.  Final Thought: Start Small, Scale Smart  You don’t need a full digital transformation to begin automating. Choose one use case, something your team is tired of doing manually, and experiment. Measure the time saved. Show impact.  Remember in TPRM, every minute you save on manual administration is a minute you can spend mitigating actual risk.  Author Bio Heather Kadavy Senior Membership Success Coordinator Heather Kadavy  joined the Third Party Risk Association (TPRA) in 2023 as the Senior Membership Success Coordinator. In recent year(s) Heather has been providing freelance TPRM consulting work to various organizations after retiring from a Nebraska financial institution after nearly 35 years where she oversaw and managed critical programs of the organization including Third Party Risk Management, Information Security, Physical Security, Safety, Business Recovery, Financial Crimes, Model Risk Management, and Enterprise Risk Management.  In her TPRM role she had oversight of over a thousand third party relationships, systems, due diligence reviews and contract management activities.  She developed, facilitated, and implemented training programs for thousands of employees over the years. Heather is a natural born connector of people and values relationship building at the cornerstone of her career.  She encourages you to connect with TPRA and herself via LinkedIn to join in the "TPRM Global Conversation".

In the early morning of October 20, 2025, Amazon Web Services, the backbone of much of the modern internet, experienced a widespread outage in its Northern Virginia region. Within hours, popular apps, business platforms, and government services began to slow or fail. By evening, AWS reported that services were operating normally, with some backlogs clearing after that. This was not some minor hiccup. It took much of the day to resolve, and by the time systems steadied, the outage had already reminded everyone how deeply daily life depends on the same shared foundations.  The Impact  The outage originated in AWS’s US-EAST-1 region, which supports a significant portion of global cloud activity. That single region underpins countless tools and services used every day by businesses, governments, and consumers alike. Well-known platforms such as Zoom, Venmo, and Alexa saw interruptions, but the effects reached much farther than that.  For many organizations, the disruption was one step removed. Their own systems appeared stable, yet vendors or downstream providers that relied on AWS began to falter. Even companies with no direct contract felt the slowdown through partners and service integrations that quietly depend on the same infrastructure.  The Cause  AWS said the incident stemmed from DNS resolution issues that affected DynamoDB service endpoints in US-EAST-1, and they began mitigation after identifying the problem ( AWS update ). In parallel, traffic health checks did not behave as expected, which complicated rerouting and recovery. The combination created a chain of disruptions that took most of the day to unwind.  In short, one lookup broke, one database stalled, and everything built on top of them learned what “shared dependency” really means.   The Response  AWS posted regular updates, isolated the DNS issue, and restored service, with some queues taking longer to clear. By evening, operations were mostly normal.  AWS confirmed that the outage was not the result of a cyberattack  and said a detailed incident analysis would be released. The company’s updates through its status page and social channels provided transparency but were highly technical, which made it difficult for non-technical teams to interpret and share meaningful updates inside their organizations .   What This Illustrates About Concentration Risk  This was concentration risk in practice, too much dependency in one place. The AWS US-EAST-1 region is popular because it is large, efficient, and cost-effective. That popularity concentrates demand, which can magnify impact during an incident.  When multiple organizations and their vendors depend on the same region, a single problem can become a multi-industry event. Many companies that felt diversified discovered their vendors were sitting on the same underlying infrastructure.  What It Reveals About Fourth- and Nth-Party Risk  Even companies far removed from AWS saw disruptions. That is extended vendor risk, where your vendor’s vendor, or their vendor’s vendor, fails and causes impact for you.  A payment platform might use AWS directly, while your billing software depends on that platform. Your HR system’s analytics add-on might sit on AWS even if the core platform does not. The farther down the chain the issue occurs, the harder it is to see, yet the business effect is the same.  The Broader Lesson: Shared Infrastructure Means Shared Consequences  Cloud services and computing have made business faster and more connected. It has also made it interdependent. When one provider falters, entire industries can feel the shock.  Technical events become business events quickly. Disruptions affect customer access, transactions, revenue, and regulatory expectations. For TPRM programs, resilience is not about predicting every outage. It is about understanding dependency risk and being ready to respond calmly when it appears.  What TPRM Practitioners Should Be Doing Now  The AWS outage was a free stress test. Even if your organization stayed upright, it showed how much depends on a handful of cloud providers. Now it’s time to turn awareness into action.  1. Revisit your dependency map   Trace your direct, fourth-party, and nth-party exposure. You do not need to document every sub-vendor, but you should know where critical systems live and who connects them.  Review your direct vendors and note hosting provider and region.  Identify shared dependencies across your portfolio.  Flag any service that leans on a single region.  Share this with cybersecurity and IT partners to align contingency plans.    2. Strengthen collaboration between TPRM and Cybersecurity/Information Technology  When an outage hits, both perspectives are essential.  Cyber professionals (which may include the incident response team) focus on the how, root cause, technical exposure, and data integrity.  TPRM focuses on the so what, business impact, vendor accountability, and continuity of services.  Confirm with IT which systems can run from more than one location. Confirm with TPRM which vendors must maintain uptime and notify you. If this partnership is informal, formalize a simple workflow that defines who watches vendor status, how alerts move to business leaders, and who decides when to communicate with executives or customers.  3. Update due diligence and contracting  Bake resilience into every step of the vendor lifecycle.  During due diligence   Ask where systems are hosted, including backup regions.  Require disclosure of key sub-vendors such as cloud hosts and data processors.  Confirm that failover is tested and recent.  Check that downtime tolerance matches your business needs.  In contracts   Add notification timelines for incidents that affect your data or operations.  Require vendors to maintain and test continuity and disaster recovery plans on a regular basis (at least annually).  Define how credits or remedies apply during regional incidents.  Include data portability and exit terms so you can migrate if reliability declines.  For existing contracts, capture this through an addendum or vendor questionnaire. The goal is alignment between your expectations and actual capabilities.  4. Treat vendor resilience as an ongoing metric  Do not let resilience live in a one-time questionnaire.  Track uptime and incident response quarterly.  Watch how vendors communicate during industry-wide disruptions.  Follow up with any vendor that takes more than a business day to confirm whether they were affected.  Transparency and communication matter as much as uptime.  5. Bring the lesson to leadership  Executives and boards care about continuity, not DNS details. Use this event as a case study.  Keep it in business terms.  How long could you operate if your main region failed?  Which vendors share that region?  How long does recovery actually take in hours, not in theory?  Boards and regulators should already be asking about cloud concentration and systemic risk. Showing mapped dependencies and credible plans signals maturity and foresight.  Not Ready for All That Yet? Try This Instead  If your program is not ready for the full list above, start smaller. A one-hour tabletop can surface the most important gaps before you redesign your program.  A One-Hour Tabletop: “When the Cloud Falters”  Scenario:  Your most important customer-facing service is degraded for six hours because your cloud provider’s main region is down.  Prompts:   What fails first, and who notices?  Who owns communication with leadership and customers?  What do you tell executives in the first 30 minutes?  What data confirms whether the issue is internal or supplier-related?  If the outage lasts more than four hours, how do you continue operations?  When and how do you tell customers you are stable again?  What good looks like:   Clear ownership of communication and impact analysis.  Named roles for executive updates and recovery coordination.  A realistic recovery time, not a guess.  Two improvement items assigned for follow-up within 30 days.  Start here. Capture where confusion happens and what slows decisions. The results will show you where to strengthen communication, contracts, and coordination next.  Conclusion   The AWS outage was not just about downtime. It was about concentration risk and dependency, and how quietly it grows until something forces everyone to see it. What looked like one point of failure was really a network of shared reliance across vendors, industries, and geographies.  For TPRM professionals, the lesson is to stop treating concentration as abstract and start treating it as operational reality. Every vendor, every contract, and every dependency tells part of that story. The work ahead is not to eliminate risk, it is to ensure that when one link breaks, which it inevitably will, the rest of the chain holds.  Additional Resource Explore our certificate, Securing SaaS Applications: A Comprehensive Approach to Cloud Risk Management , which provides an in-depth look at evaluating and managing risks associated with cloud-based SaaS solutions. Author Bio Hilary Jewhurst Sr. Membership & Education Coordinator at TPRA Hilary Jewhurst  is a seasoned expert in third-party risk and risk operations, with nearly two decades of experience across financial services, fintech, and the nonprofit sector. She has built and scaled third-party risk programs from the ground up, designed enterprise-wide training initiatives, and developed widely respected content that helps organizations navigate regulatory complexity with clarity and confidence. Known for turning insight into action, Hilary’s thought leadership and educational work have become go-to resources for professionals looking to mature their TPRM programs. She regularly publishes articles, frameworks, and practical guides that break down complicated risk topics into meaningful, accessible strategies. Hilary recently joined the  Third Party Risk Association (TPRA)  as a staff member, supporting industry-wide education, peer learning, and advancing best practices. She is also the founder of  TPRM Success , a boutique consultancy that helps organizations strengthen their third-party risk management capabilities through targeted training, tools, and strategic guidance.

When a vendor relationship ends, the risk doesn’t.  Too often, vendor offboarding is treated as an afterthought, left to chance, split between departments, or buried in a never-used checklist. The problem? An incomplete or inconsistent termination process exposes your organization to some of the highest risks in the TPRM lifecycle.   These risks include, but are not limited to, access that was never revoked, assets that were never returned, and/or data that was never deleted.  The good news: these risks are avoidable, and automation can help.  Why Offboarding Matters More Than You Think  In many organizations, onboarding gets all the attention, due diligence, approvals, kickoff meetings, and security reviews.  But what about the end of the relationship?  "You wouldn’t let an employee walk out the door without collecting their badge and shutting off system access. Why do we do it with vendors?"   Poor offboarding can lead to:  Lingering system access and potential unauthorized activity  Unreturned data or devices , especially in hybrid/cloud environments  No formal record of what actions were completed or by whom  Compliance gaps if data disposal or security controls were contractual  The Automation Opportunity  Here’s where automation can drastically improve vendor offboarding, making it faster, repeatable, and auditable.  1. Triggering the Offboarding Workflow Automatically  When a contract is marked as terminated or not renewed, the system will kick off automated offboarding activities.  It can route these activities to IT, InfoSec, Procurement, and TPRM automatically.  Tool tip: Use a trigger from your TPRM tool, GRC system, or contract lifecycle platform to launch this sequence.    2. Auto-Assigning Offboarding Tasks  Such offboarding tasks can include, but are not limited to:  Revoking system access and credentials  Collecting physical or virtual assets  Confirming data destruction or secure transfer  Archiving vendor risk files and workpapers  Tool tip:  Use tools like ServiceNow, Jira, or Monday.com to assign tasks and track completion status in real time.    3. Generating & Storing Offboarding Evidence  The system can require documentation uploads or confirmations (e.g., screenshot of deprovisioned access, destruction certificates) of completed offboarding tasks  It can also store all evidence in the third party profile for audit purposes  Tool tip:  Attach offboarding steps to a third party profile in your TPRM platform or centralize storage in a secure SharePoint folder.    4. Post-Termination Reviews  Set up a short internal review form to capture any final third party risks or lessons learned.  Optionally trigger a survey to business owners to assess third party performance.  Update the third party’s profile to note if the third party can be used again or if it is recommended to not do business with the third party.  Tool tip: Use Microsoft Forms or Google Forms and auto-send based on the third party status change.  Real-World Example: Offboarding Automation at a Global Fintech  A fintech company with over 1,200 third parties discovered that more than 30% of “inactive” third parties still had some form of residual access, including access to shared cloud folders and legacy single sign-on (SSO) profiles.  The organization then implemented a third party offboarding checklist built into their TPRM platform, which auto-triggered when a contract end date was reached or when a business owner marked a third party as "no longer in use."  Each task, such as deprovisioning access, collecting assets, confirming data deletion, was auto-assigned to pertinent stakeholders with deadlines and owner accountability.  Results in the first 6 months:   Reduced open-access risk by 78%  100% of offboarding steps documented and accessible for audits  Gained stronger alignment between TPRM, InfoSec, and Procurement  Getting Started: Questions to Ask  Do we have a standard offboarding checklist for third parties?  Who owns each task, and how do we know the tasks were completed?  Can we identify all third parties with system access that may still be active post-contract?  Do we store evidence of data destruction or handover?    Quick Win to Try  Start by creating a centralized third party offboarding checklist with due dates and owner fields. Even if you use Excel or a Google Form at first, link this to third party termination triggers and build consistency from there.  Then, explore how your existing tools (TPRM platform, ticketing system, workflow automation) can formalize and automate the process.    For additional information on the third party Termination process, view TPRA’s TPRM 101 Guidebook.   Author Bio Heather Kadavy Senior Membership Success Coordinator Heather Kadavy  joined the Third Party Risk Association (TPRA) in 2023 as the Senior Membership Success Coordinator. In recent year(s) Heather has been providing freelance TPRM consulting work to various organizations after retiring from a Nebraska financial institution after nearly 35 years where she oversaw and managed critical programs of the organization including Third Party Risk Management, Information Security, Physical Security, Safety, Business Recovery, Financial Crimes, Model Risk Management, and Enterprise Risk Management.  In her TPRM role she had oversight of over a thousand third party relationships, systems, due diligence reviews and contract management activities.  She developed, facilitated, and implemented training programs for thousands of employees over the years. Heather is a natural born connector of people and values relationship building at the cornerstone of her career.  She encourages you to connect with TPRA and herself via LinkedIn to join in the "TPRM Global Conversation".

Explore jobs in third party risk management from organizations hiring TPRM professionals. New listings added regularly. Start your search today. TPRM Job Listings Searching for a TPRM-specific job? Check out the listings below from organizations looking for talented TPRM professionals! Note: TPRA reserves the right to remove any job listing for any reason and without communication to the contact. Post a Job StoneX Group Inc. TPRM Analyst View Job Chicago or Kansas City Oracle Third Party Incident Management lead View Job Nashville, TN (onsite) TikTok TPRM Analyst - USDS View Job New York, NY (Hybrid) Aravo Solutions Integration Consultant - SaaS/TPRM View Job Irving, TX (hybrid) Vanguard Head of Digital & Third Party Resilience View Job Malvern, PA CVSHealth Manager, Third Party Security View Job Hartford, CT (Remote) Vanguard Vendor Management Specialist - Oversight View Job Malvern, PA CFGI Supply Chain Senior Manager View Job Remote UBS OCRA/Third Party Risk Assessor View Job New York, NY (Onsite) Acrisure Third Party Risk Manager View Job Boston, MA & Charlotte, NC - etc. (onsite) Regeneron Executive Director, TPRM View Job Sleepy Hollow, NY (Hybrid) Oracle TPRM Principle Security Advisor View Job U.S. (Remote) LOAD MORE

Join TPRA’s Women in TPRM program to uplift and support women in the industry through mentorship, leadership development, and recognition. Empowering the next generation of women leaders in TPRM. Our Goals Our Goals The Women in TPRM (WNTPRM) Program is dedicated to empowering women in the Third Party Risk Management (TPRM) industry. This program is open to all , regardless of TPRA membership status or gender identity. Through collaborative efforts, we aim to: Uplift Women in TPRM : Advocate for professional growth and recognition. Provide Access to Higher-Paying Roles: Break barriers to equitable opportunities in TPRM careers. Facilitate Mentorships: Connect women with seasoned professionals to foster guidance and growth. Celebrate & Support Women: Establish a platform to spotlight achievements and nurture community. Cultivate Future Leaders: Develop the next generation of trailblazers in TPRM. What We Do What We Do We meet monthly to strategize on achieving these goals and to address challenges within the field. You do not need to be a TPRA member to participate in this program, but some facets of this program are member-specific, such as our 'Women in TPRM' Slack Channel, where TPRA Practitioner Members can continue meaningful conversations, share resources, and collaborate. Standard Practitioner Membership is free , and all TPRA Practitioner Members are invited to join our Slack Forum here . Members and non-members can join our LinkedIn group to stay connected. Our Initiatives Include: Advocating for the importance of women in TPRM through educational resources and outreach. Providing access to tools, techniques, and insights that uplift and empower women in the field. Showcasing and celebrating women leaders who inspire and shape the TPRM landscape. Sharing job opportunities from organizations committed to supporting women in TPRM. Join us as we drive change, foster leadership, and build a brighter future for women in TPRM! Meetings Upcoming Meetings Watch On-Demand Meetings December 2, 2025 1:00 - 2:00 PM CT WNTPRM Work Group Meeting Read All December 10, 2025 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM Central Seminar: Leadership & Management Skills for Women – Afternoon Option Read All December 10, 2025 8:00 AM - 11:00 AM Central Seminar: Leadership & Management Skills for Women – Morning Option Read All Programs & Resources WNTPRM Work Group The WNTPRM Work Group is a collaborative forum dedicated to empowering and advancing women in third-party risk management (TPRM) through education, leadership development, mentorship, and career advancement, fostering a supportive community for women professionals and leaders. Register for Meetings Mentorship Program Our mentorship program is focused on women within the field of Third-Party Risk Management. Our goal for this program is to align mentors and mentees to address and support the needs of our membership. If interested in becoming a mentor or mentee, please fill out the interest form. Interest Form Women Lead Spotlights Our Women Lead Program is dedicated to showcasing inspiring leaders by highlighting their stories. Our goal for this program is to learn from and be inspired by women leaders in the field of Third Party Risk Management (TPRM) throughout various industries. View our Leaders and learn how to nominate and/or apply to become a spotlight. View Spotlights Resource Sharing Library Our Women in TPRM Resource Sharing Library contains a variety of women in business-related materials. Included are reports on the latest women in business trends and statistics, blogs and articles on relevant and current happenings, and TED Talks featuring inspiring women in business educating others on how to navigate the business world and find success in their careers. View Library Leadership Ladders Originally developed by TPRA's Women in TPRM "Lead" work group, this training activity is designed for all current & aspiring leaders within the Third Party Risk Management (TPRM) industry. Inspired by the classic "Shoots and Ladders" game, it is an all-in-one roadmap to leadership in the form of a nostalgic, virtual board game! E ach box on the board is linked to a valuable resource–including customized guides, blogs, videos, quizzes, and more–with the goal of enhancing your leadership potential through buildable skills and expert insights. Any professional, regardless of what stage they're at in their career, can find value in this activity. Check It Out Recorded Meetings View meeting recordings and PowerPoints from our monthly Women In TPRM Meetings. Recorded Meetings Resources Statistics Women only represent 15-20% of the Governance, Risk and Compliance profession (GRC World Forums, 2021). Read Full Article Only about 25% of every 100 security and risk management (SRM) executives are women (Gartner Inc., 2019). Read Full Article Gender-diverse and inclusive teams outperform gender-homogeneous, less-inclusive teams by an average of 50 % (Gartner Inc., 2019). Read Full Article According to one survey, 24% of global cybersecurity employees are women, and 18% of CIOs/CTOs are female (Deloitte, 2021 ). Read Full Article Quotes "Diversity matters not just because increasing representation of minorities and women in a fast growing and critical field is the right thing to do, but because a variety of viewpoints are key to solving hard problems." SVP, General Counsel - Legal, Bitsight Johanna Werbach “...change must come from within the industry and not be mandated from external parties.” Chief Data and Privacy Officer, MeritB2B Karie Burt "With different backgrounds and perspectives and voices at the table and in an environment where their contributions are really valued, you benefit from a much more expansive conversation and one that’s much more likely to uncover the full range of possibilities and solutions." VP & GM, TPRM, BitSight Vanessa Jankowski Read "Women in CyberSecurity"

All TPRM professionals are invited to attend our "Open Meetings"! No TPRA membership is required. Meetings Open to All All TPRM professionals are invited to join us for these informative events! You do not need to have a TPRA Membership to attend. Filter by Event Type Select Event Type WORK GROUP WNTPRM Work Group Meeting Date Tuesday, December 2, 2025 Time 1:00 - 2:00 PM CT Learn More Register Now TPRM WEBINAR Roundtable: TPRA Year In Review / Look Ahead + FUN! Date Thursday, December 11, 2025 Time 10:00 - 11:00 AM CT Learn More Register Now SEMINAR Seminar: Leadership & Management Skills for Women – Morning Option Date Wednesday, December 10, 2025 Time 8:00 AM - 11:00 AM Central Learn More Register Now WOMEN IN TPRM Women In TPRM Meeting Date Tuesday, December 16, 2025 Time 1:00 - 2:00 PM CT Learn More Register Now SEMINAR Seminar: Leadership & Management Skills for Women – Afternoon Option Date Wednesday, December 10, 2025 Time 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM Central Learn More Register Now LOAD MORE