India, Jan. 27 -- For years, burnout in governance, risk, and compliance roles was treated as an unfortunate side effect of regulatory work. In reality, it was the operating model.

Manual evidence collection, repetitive questionnaires, and last-minute audit scrambles weren't temporary pressures. They were how the function was designed to run.

That design shaped the day-to-day reality of compliance teams. A typical week disappeared into gathering evidence, re-uploading the same artefacts for every audit, and responding to nearly identical security questionnaires across customers.

Policies had to be tracked, updated, and remapped as requirements changed, all while audit deadlines hovered constantly in the background. The work was less ab...