Senior GRC Specialist

About the Role

Cohere is seeking a Senior GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) Specialist to join its centralized team within the Security organization. This high-impact role focuses on building and shaping Cohere’s compliance and governance foundation amidst evolving expectations for security, privacy, public sector readiness, and responsible AI. The specialist will translate complex requirements into scalable programs, practical controls, and durable governance processes, playing a key role in reinforcing customer trust and ensuring regulatory adherence. This is not a purely policy-focused role; it requires pairing compliance expertise with practical technical problem-solving, including automation, lightweight tool building, and process improvement. The role supports responsible growth in a fast-moving environment.

Responsibilities

• Build, implement, and scale compliance programs, controls, and processes across frameworks and regulatory requirements including SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, ISO 42001, Product Compliance, and FedRAMP/DoD (+others)
• Support and mature compliance efforts related AI governance including work aligned to ISO 42001 and the EU AI Act
• Drive compliance readiness for FedRAMP, DoD, and related public sector requirements, while supporting broader enterprise and customer-facing compliance obligations
• Partner with Security, Engineering, Modeling, Product, Legal, and other cross-functional teams to translate requirements into practical, scalable controls
• Improve compliance operations through automation, tooling, and scalable workflows
• Help build scripts or lightweight tools for evidence collection, reporting, control tracking, and audit readiness
• Manage cross-functional projects, timelines, remediation efforts, and audit preparation
• Support audits, assessments, and customer or regulatory compliance requests.

7+ years of progressive experience in the following

• Building and scaling compliance programs across multiple frameworks and regulatory requirements, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, with extensive experience in FedRAMP, DoD, and public sector or highly regulated environments
• AI governance and frameworks such as ISO 42001
• Strong project management and cross-functional execution skills
• Technical fluency and comfort working with Engineering and Security teams
• Automation, workflow tooling, or process design; some hands-on experience with Python or similar scripting for lightweight automation is a plus
• Strong written communication, organization, and attention to detail.

Qualifications

• Experience designing and implementing mature risk management frameworks, including FAIR, quantitative risk methodologies, and other structured enterprise risk models
• Consulting experience in regulated environments, including multi-jurisdictional compliance programs and regulatory requirements across the U.S. and international markets
• Experience with additional frameworks such as NIST CSF, NIST RMF, NIST AI RMF, CMMC, or similar standards
• Experience working in cloud-native, SaaS, or highly technical product environments
• Experience preparing reports, metrics, and presentations for senior leadership, including communicating compliance posture, program progress, and risk insights to executive stakeholders.

Benefits

• A weekly lunch stipend of $75/£75 or equivalent in your local currency for lunch.
• Full health and dental benefits, including a separate budget for mental health.
• RRSP matching, 401K, Pension Scheme.
• 100% Parental Leave top-up for up to 6 months, for either parent.