Governance, risk and compliance

SmartSuite for the Compliance Manager

The Compliance Manager runs day-to-day compliance for a domain or set of frameworks: aligning risks, controls and obligations, preparing evidence for reviews and monitoring remediation. They are the working link between compliance, risk, audit and the business.

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Reports to:

Compliance Director

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What you own

The Compliance Manager runs day-to-day compliance for a domain or set of frameworks: aligning risks, controls and obligations, preparing evidence for reviews and monitoring remediation.

Maintain the obligations and control mapping for their domain
Coordinate control testing and evidence collection with control owners
Prepare evidence packs for internal and external reviews
Monitor open issues and verify remediation progress
Align risks, controls and regulatory obligations with the risk function
Support audits, examinations and certification cycles
Report compliance status for their domain

At a glance

The GRC processes this role owns, touches and depends on.

Owns

accountable for the process

compliance

Touches

contributes or approves

issues-actions, audit, third-party, risk, reporting

Depends on

consumes its output

policy, privacy

How the GRC processes connect

Three lines of defense set the frame; the chain shows where each process hands off to the next. Colors follow the role: navy is owned, blue is touched, gray is depended on.

Reporting lines

Who this role reports to, who reports to them, and the peers they work with most.

Reports to

Compliance Director

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Direct reports

Compliance Analyst

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Works closely with

How SmartSuite supports this role

Lead

Compliance management. Maps vendor and internal controls, documents and certifications to compliance frameworks, giving a single source of truth for evidence.

Internal audit. Aggregates the evidence required for internal and external regulatory reviews and prepares it for auditors.

Third-party risk. Monitors vendor evidence, certifications and remediation so third-party engagements meet policy and regulatory obligations.

Issues and actions. Monitors open issues and verifies remediation progress with linked records and reminders.

Reporting. Provides shared dashboards combining compliance, risk and audit status for leadership.

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Products this role uses most

Compliance Assessments & Testing

Manage assessment campaigns and testing schedules with a reusable question library, automated workflows, and one place for evidence collection.

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Control Framework & Regulatory Libraries

Keep controls in one library and map them across frameworks to reduce duplication and enable a test-once, comply-many approach.

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Third-Party Risk Management

Standardize vendor due diligence, centralize assessments, and monitor ongoing risk exposure to ensure supplier reliability and compliance.

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Issues Management

Track and remediate issues across audits, risk, and compliance with structured workflows, clear ownership, and real-time visibility into resolution status.

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SOC 2 Compliance

Achieve SOC 2 compliance with structured workflows, automated evidence collection, and continuous visibility into control effectiveness and audit readiness.

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Industry reference

ISO 37301:2021 and ISACA's compliance practice guidance describe the manager's loop: map obligations to controls, test on a schedule, keep evidence and track findings to closure. The same evidence pack serves multiple frameworks when controls are mapped once.

What the frameworks are depends on sector. Banks map to FFIEC and prudential rules; healthcare organizations to HIPAA and state licensure; public sector bodies to NIST SP 800-53 and FedRAMP; technology companies to SOC 2, ISO/IEC 27001, PCI DSS v4.0.1 and, increasingly, the EU's NIS2 and DORA.

Related roles

Compliance Director

See the role

DEEPEN YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Explore Further

Guides and definitions from the GRC Knowledge Center and the What-is glossary, chosen for this role.

All articles

What's new

What is Remediation Tracking?

What is Security Compliance Management?

AI incident reporting obligations: a crosswalk of what to report, to whom and by when

SOC 2 Audit Timeline: Readiness, the Observation Window and Bridge Letters

What Good GRC Evidence Looks Like for Regulators, Auditors, and Customers

How to Reduce Duplicate Evidence Requests Across GRC Teams

Issue Remediation and Validation

SOC 2 Compliance as a Connected Workflow, Not a Scramble

Frequently asked questions

What does a Compliance Manager own for their domain?

The Compliance Manager runs day-to-day compliance for a domain or set of frameworks: the obligations and control mapping, control testing and evidence collection with control owners, evidence packs for internal and external reviews, monitoring of open issues and remediation, alignment of risks, controls and obligations with the risk function, support for audits, examinations and certification cycles and reporting of compliance status for the domain. They are the working link between compliance, risk, audit and the business.

How does SmartSuite give a Compliance Manager a single source of evidence?

SmartSuite maps vendor and internal controls, documents and certifications to compliance frameworks in Control Framework & Regulatory Libraries and Compliance Assessments & Testing, giving a single source of truth for evidence. The manager can see for any requirement which control meets it, what evidence exists and when it was last tested, and the same evidence serves every framework the control is mapped to, so SOC 2 Compliance and the sector framework draw on one evidence set.

How does the manager prepare evidence packs for auditors?

SmartSuite aggregates the evidence required for internal and external regulatory reviews and prepares it for auditors, so an evidence pack is assembled from the records already maintained rather than requested from control owners under deadline. The manager selects the review scope; the controls, test results and evidence in scope are gathered, and the Audit Manager or external assessor works from that set, with gaps visible to the manager before the review starts.

How does the manager monitor vendor evidence and certifications?

Third-Party Risk Management monitors vendor evidence, certifications and remediation, so the manager can confirm that third-party engagements in their domain meet policy and regulatory obligations without a separate vendor spreadsheet. Expiring certifications and open remediation are visible against each vendor, and the Third-Party Risk Manager's assessments and the compliance requirements sit on the same supplier record, which is how vendor evidence enters the domain's evidence pack.

How does the Compliance Manager verify remediation and report status?

Open issues are monitored in Issues Management with linked records and reminders, so the manager verifies remediation progress from the record rather than by asking Control Owners, and the Compliance Analyst who reports to the manager works the same list. Shared dashboards combine compliance, risk and audit status for leadership, which gives the Compliance Director the domain's status and gives the Risk Manager and Audit Manager the same picture from their side.

How quickly can a domain's compliance work move into SmartSuite?

New customers can start with SmartSuite Onboarding, a guided four-week program around one or two priority workflows. For a Compliance Manager the first workflow is the domain's control mapping: load the frameworks and obligations in scope, map the existing controls, assign control owners and bring in current evidence and open issues. Certification cycles already under way can be recorded at their current stage. Because the Privacy Program Manager and Third-Party Risk Manager work in the same system, obligations that cross domains are handled once rather than tracked separately by each manager.

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