The Forward Deployed Engineer, Agentic Voting, & Treating GRC Like a Product | Guest: Jon Zeolla
Source: YouTube · GRC Engineering Club · published Jun 13, 2026 · 51:20
The Anti-Checkbox Podcast features John Aola discussing nearly two decades of experience in GRC engineering, emphasizing that successful automation requires treating compliance programs as products with empathy for all stakeholders 0:49.
Key Takeaways:
• John Aola brings 20 years of experience spanning infosec, data science at Carnegie Mellon, SANS faculty, outsourced GRC engineering, and now a startup focused on quality engineering for coding agents 0:49.
• Successful GRC automation requires starting small, leading with empathy, and educating stakeholders before deploying new technology—auditors trained on traditional work papers need time to adapt to new evidence formats 0:25.
• GRC programs should be treated as living products with sprints, user personas, and continuous improvement rather than one-time projects that pause between audit cycles 0:05.
This episode delivers actionable insights on bridging the gap between engineers and auditors through a product mindset, forward-deployed GRC engineering, and emerging concepts like agent-based governance feedback loops.
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First 800 characters of the transcript
Welcome friends to another what I feel is going to be a scintillating edition of the anti-checkbox podcast. Uh we have I mean you know listen you get with AJ he introduces you to all these amazing cool people uh you know and definitely right like Ian's faculty taught at SANS but I won't get into all that I'll let him do it. We have with us today the uh the inimitable John Aola. John, welcome. >> AJ, thanks for having me on. It's going to be fun. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah, man. It's going to be it's going to be a blast. You want to give like an a bridged version of the background. Although, I'll preface it with if you don't know, please lose my number, but uh but please go ahead. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. My background is coming up on 20 years in infosc and quality engineering. I wo…