Celebrating 20+ years of OCEG.

OCEG was founded by Scott Mitchell in the wake of the “dot com bust” and notable corporate failures such as Enron, Worldcom, and Healthsouth. His initial mission was to improve corporate compliance and ethics, and so he called it the Open Compliance and Ethics Group. Very rapidly, our members found conversations expanding beyond compliance and ethics — moving into performance management, risk management, governance, and assurance. So now, we simply go by the initialism OCEG.

Our inaugural Advisory Board was composed of senior leaders from the corporate and academic communities. It was responsible for guiding and shaping OCEG’s initial mission, vision, and statement of principles. GRC was invented as a shorthand reference to the critical capabilities that must work together to achieve Principled Performance — the capabilities that integrate the governance, management and assurance of performance, risk, and compliance activities.

After months of analysis, collaboration, and vetting, the first GRC standard emerges. Originally called the Capability Model, the cover was a deep red. It quickly became known as the OCEG Red Book. It detailed practices for GRC “the integration of the governance, assurance and management of performance, risk, compliance and ethics” (from GRC Glossary).

After defining GRC and developing high-level concepts, the OCEG community begins work on version 2 of the GRC Capability Model and the standard gains wide adoption with over 100,000 downloads in a single year. The desire to audit governance, risk management and compliance leads the OCEG community to develop the GRC Assessment Model (known as the “Burgundy Book”).

OCEG and GRC as a concept were fully recognized. Analysts at Forrester, Gartner, and IDC began using GRC as a way to organize software that addressed governance, assurance and management of performance, risk, compliance, and ethics. OCEG and its executives were recognized by Business Finance Magazine, Treasury and Risk Magazine and others.

“Principled Performance” is defined to describe the goal of GRC and OCEG founder, Scott Mitchell, writes the first academic journal article on the topic (published in the International Journal of Governance and Disclosure in 2007).

The acclaimed GRC Illustrated Series begins and OCEG begins more broadly distributing though leadership about GRC and Principled Performance.

The OCEG GRC “Desk Set” comprised of the GRC Capability Model (Red Book), GRC Assessment Model (Burgundy Book) and GRC Solutions Model is created.

Certification begins via GRC Certify to help formalize the education and credentialing of GRC knowledge and skills.

GRC Glossary is finalized and version 3.0 of the GRC Capability Model is authorized by the OCEG Leadership Council.

The GRC movement reaches over 50,000 members. We reach thousands of professionals on 6 continents and 2,500 cities. Key updates to the GRC Capability Model and GRC Assessment Tools, along with translations into several languages drastically increases the reach of GRC and Principled Performance.

Our membership develops several new standards, courses and certifications.

OCEG launches new visual brand to celebrate 20 years of history!

Our membership grows to 150,000 people. New certifications released. The Integrated Audit & Assurance Professional (IAAP) and the Integrated Compliance & Ethics Professional (ICEP).