We’re proud to share that women across the CoreStream GRC community have been shortlisted in 4 categories at the 2026 Women in Governance, Risk, and Compliance Awards.
This year’s shortlist reflects something we care deeply about at CoreStream GRC: practical female leadership. The kind that turns complex requirements into working systems, brings clarity to risk and compliance, and makes governance more usable across real organizations.
It also comes at an important time.
According to McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2025 report:
“Only 93 women were promoted to manager-level roles for every 100 men. The gap is even bigger for women of color, with 74 women of color promoted for every 100 men. As a result, men significantly outnumber women at the manager level, making it difficult for women to catch up.”
Our 2026 Women in GRC shortlist includes recognition for both CoreStream GRC team members and client leaders driving meaningful change in their own organizations with the help of the CoreStream GRC platform.
The 2026 shortlisted nominees
GRC Rising Star of the Year: SME
Ariana Vass, Configuration Analyst, CoreStream GRC
Ariana joined CoreStream GRC a year and a half ago, and has made a significant impact in that time as part of the Delivery team and Social Committee. Ariana is known for turning complex client requirements into clear, workable configurations.
With a background in Mathematical Sciences and experience across industries such as transport, pharmaceuticals, energy, public sector and finance, she brings a rare mix of technical depth, calm under pressure, and real client focus. Her work spans compliance, risk, audit, and third-party risk solutions, with particular strength in data migration, workflow design, and explaining complex ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
“I’m really pleased to be shortlisted for GRC Rising Star of the Year: SME. Working with former big 4 experts at CoreStream GRC has given me the chance to learn quickly, take ownership, and work on genuinely complex projects with brilliant people. I’m grateful for the trust the team places in me and excited to keep building in this space.”
Ariana Vass, Configuration Analyst, CoreStream GRC
Technology Leader of the Year
Alka Kumar, Head of Client Concepts, CoreStream GRC
Alka’s shortlist place is recognition of years spent bridging product, delivery, and client outcomes. She has helped shape CoreStream GRC from the inside out, progressing through platform delivery, quality assurance, and testing leadership into her current role as Head of Client Concepts.
Today, she helps lead major client solutions, supports strategic partnerships, and translates complex business requirements into practical, scalable GRC systems. Colleagues consistently describe her as a leader with vision, strong communication, and a passion to simplify the complex. This follows Alka’s win in 2025 as the Rising Star SME.
GRC Ambassador of the Year
Tanya Heath, Entain
Tanya Heath, Group Director of Internal Audit at Entain, has been shortlisted for GRC Ambassador of the Year for her role in making GRC more practical, connected, and business-owned across a complex global organization.
She built and leads Entain’s global internal audit and enterprise risk management functions, championing a more integrated and technology-enabled approach across multiple regulated jurisdictions.
Her work with CoreStream GRC has played an important role in that journey. At Entain, Tanya led the implementation of CoreStream GRC and it’s continual development across the business.
“My favorite thing about CoreStream GRC is how flexible it is. It adapts to your own business process. It’s not a piece of software where you adapt to it. You can change it. At Entain, we have a number of different businesses and ways of doing things, and CoreStream GRC can cope with that.”
Tanya Heath, Group Director of Internal Audit, Entain
Women in GRC Leader
Nikki Absolom, Pets at Home
Nikki is Head of Internal Controls at Pets at Home and a long-standing GRC leader with experience spanning retail, utilities, medical, and other regulated sectors. Her work stands out because it combines deep controls expertise with a sharp eye for how technology can make GRC more connected, more useful, and more scalable.
At Pets at Home, Nikki has led the design and implementation of CoreStream GRC as a fully integrated enterprise solution supporting various use cases. The result is a more connected GRC operating model with stronger board reporting, greater efficiency, and better decision-making across the business.
As part of that work, Nikki also helped deliver one of the first client LLM-to-GRC integrations, improving accuracy and reducing the time needed to write test plans by 65% for each key control.
“We’ve partnered with CoreStream GRC for several years to build and evolve our GRC solution, seamlessly integrating controls, policies, and risks…
CoreStream GRC quickly designed and implemented the integration, allowing us to significantly enhance our GRC tool’s capabilities and further strengthen our ability to protect and assure Pets at Home. The resulting solution has dramatically increased our productivity through automation, with examples including suggesting wording for review rather than time intensive manual creation.”
Nikki Absolom, Head of Internal Controls, Pets at Home
Why the Women in GRC shortlist matters to us at CoreStream GRC
When it comes to progress in GRC, awards are not the point. But recognition like this matters because it highlights the exact kind of work that actually moves GRC forward.
Across these 4 shortlist places, there is a clear pattern in these women: leadership that is practical, collaborative, and grounded in delivery. Whether that means building better systems, simplifying complexity, improving assurance, or creating more usable governance across large organizations, this is the kind of progress the industry needs more of.
That is also why this year’s shortlist feels bigger than a company update. It reflects the strength of the wider CoreStream GRC community, from our own team to the client leaders using CoreStream GRC to drive meaningful change inside their organizations.
And it sits within a wider commitment from us. As a premium sponsor of the 2026 Women in GRC Awards for the second year running, CoreStream GRC is proud to invest not just in recognition, but in the visibility, dialogue, and community helping reshape the future of governance, risk, and compliance.
According to Women in Tech: “80% of professional women at the manager level and above utilize networking to propel their careers forward.” Events like these awards could enable the empowerment and promotion of the next generation of women into GRC and their leadership roles.
Continuing the conversation
At CoreStream GRC, we care about more than recognition alone. We care about the people, perspectives, and conversations helping move this industry forward.
To keep that conversation going…
Read our Blog: Equity and allyship with Women in GRC at #RISK Europe 2025.
Save the date
The 2026 Women in GRC Awards ceremony will take place on 2 July 2026 at the Pullman London St Pancras, as part of the wider #RISK Series.
We’re proud to see Ariana, Alka, Tanya, and Nikki recognized, and we’ll be cheering them on at the ceremony.
About the Women in GRC Awards
The Women in Governance, Risk, and Compliance Awards celebrate the achievements of women shaping the future of governance, risk, and compliance. The awards continue to spotlight leadership, innovation, and impact across the industry, while helping drive visibility, representation, and progress across GRC.
About CoreStream GRC
CoreStream GRC is the intuitive, flexible GRC platform that delivers efficiency and value, your way. We help organizations build practical, scalable solutions across risk, compliance, audit, controls, third-party risk, privacy, and more, without unnecessary complexity. Trusted by organizations including the BBC, Deloitte, NHS, PwC Middle East, Shell Energy, Pets at Home, and Entain, CoreStream GRC is built to work the way real teams work.
FAQs on the Women in GRC shortlist 2026
The Women in GRC Awards 2026 celebrate women driving progress in governance, risk, and compliance through leadership, innovation, and measurable impact across the industry.
The 2026 shortlist includes Ariana Vass and Alka Kumar from CoreStream GRC, alongside Tanya Heath of Entain and Nikki Absolom of Pets at Home.
Client leaders Tanya Heath and Nikki Absolom have been shortlisted for work that shows how flexible, integrated GRC technology can strengthen governance, reporting, efficiency, and decision-making.
As a premium sponsor, CoreStream GRC is investing in visibility, representation, and the wider conversations helping reshape the future of governance, risk, and compliance.
CoreStream GRC supports women in GRC by investing in visibility, opportunity, and industry dialogue, from sponsoring the Women in GRC Awards to celebrating female industry leaders across our team and client community who are driving real change.
