Risk-First: Stars of Software #6 – Jyoti Wadhwa

Jyoti Wadhwa: AI Governance at Scale, Decision Risk, and the Future of the SDLCIn this episode of Risk-First: Stars of Software, Rob Moffat talks with Jyoti Wadhwa, global leader in AI governance and enterprise technology risk, and contributor to FINOS AI governance efforts.Jyoti has spent her career helping large organisations—from Fortune 100 companies to US federal agencies—adopt emerging technologies safely, translating regulatory expectations, risk frameworks, and responsible AI principles into governance models that actually work in practice. Which makes her the perfect person to explore what governance really means when you’re operating at scale.The conversation explores how organisations move from individual experimentation with AI tools to coordinated, enterprise-wide adoption, why governance isn’t about slowing things down but enabling decisions, and how the shift to agentic, non-deterministic systems is fundamentally changing the software development lifecycle.Along the way, Rob and Jyoti dive into:Why governance is really about decision-making at scale—not documentationThe concept of decision risk as the most important risk in AI adoptionHow organisations must bring the right stakeholders together based on use case, not hierarchyWhy governance enables innovation rather than slowing it downThe three major AI risk buckets: regulatory/compliance, data & privacy, and operational visibilityHow policies translate from law → organisational agreement → technical controlsWhy the SDLC is shifting from deterministic pipelines to probabilistic, agent-driven systemsThe challenge of maintaining control and auditability in AI-driven developmentWhy “human in the loop” systems must account for psychological limits like vigilance decrementThe emergence of baseline architectures and reference models for safe AI adoptionWhy inconsistent LLM usage across business units is already a real-world governance failureHow FINOS and industry standards help create shared “baselines of good” across firmsWhy vendor risk and AI tooling sprawl are becoming major enterprise concernsHow regulation will continue to lag innovation—but increase rapidly in response## LinksFINOS AI Governance Frameworkhttps://github.com/finos/ai-governance-frameworkOpen-source framework defining risks and controls for adopting AI in financial services.FINOS (Fintech Open Source Foundation)https://www.finos.orgIndustry foundation enabling collaboration on open standards and governance across financial services.NIST AI Risk Management Frameworkhttps://www.nist.gov/itl/ai-risk-management-frameworkWidely referenced framework for managing AI risk, governance, and trustworthy AI systems.MITRE ATT&CK Frameworkhttps://attack.mitre.orgKnowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques used for threat modelling and security analysis.