Kate Aziz
Global Head of KY3P® Managed Services, S&P Global

Kate Aziz joined S&P Global, then IHS Markit, in January 2021 having spent six years at Goldman Sachs after a career in the Royal Air Force. We asked her to tell us about her role, what she enjoys and why TPRM is important.

Tell us about your role and what you enjoy about it?

I joined to head up what was, at the time, the newly established Know Your Third-Party (KY3P) Managed Services business. My role is to define the strategic direction, product offering and go-to-market approach for the business. I love that I get to spend so much of my time with customers, helping them to create and implement sustainable TPRM capabilities that support transformational goals and complement their business strategies.

What's interesting about this industry and how it's developing?

TPRM is constantly evolving which keeps it interesting. There's an increasing need, and growing appetite, for firms to work smarter by outsourcing non-core (but still important) capabilities such as TPRM. Doing this in-house means spanning the critical areas of vulnerability such as data breaches, operational failures, financial instability, reputational impact, cybercrime and more and could require employing half a dozen specialists, a manager and a team to drive execution. Customers recognize this challenge and are increasingly seeing the value of outsourcing.

What do you see as the key benefits of outsourcing TPRM?

There are a number that are really important. Perhaps the headline is the 20-25% of operational cost savings that are typically seen with outsourcing.

The access to specialist TPRM and cyber professionals is also key. Not only can you access specialist expertise, outsourcing offers access to agile scaling models that allow for rapid growth to meet demands without the burden of lengthy and expensive recruitment.

Of course, an additional benefit is that business can focus on their core capabilities and avoid adding TPRM to the in-house team's existing tasks.

What sets KY3P apart from its competitors for you?

At its core, it's a TPRM solution, not a governance, risk and compliance (GRC) or procurement solution with a risk management module tacked on. It's been built by and for TPRM professional and combines the strength of industry-leading technology, world-class data and people to deliver a complete end-to-end TPRM capability.

One fun fact about yourself?

Tough one! Back in my RAF days, I was the late Queen Elizabeth II's bathroom guard (just for one brief afternoon…thankfully!)

Get in touch if you would like to speak to one of our KY3P experts today!

IHS Markit provides industry-leading data, software and technology platforms and managed services to tackle some of the most difficult challenges in financial markets. We help our customers better understand complicated markets, reduce risk, operate more efficiently and comply with financial regulation.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.