Optro Announces CRX’26 Agenda as GRC Enters Its Fourth Era

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — July 16, 2026 — Optro, the leading AI-powered GRC Intelligence Platform empowering enterprises to transform risk into opportunity, today announced the agenda for CRX (formerly known as Audit & Beyond), its eighth annual customer and industry conference taking place October 13-15 at the Gaylord Pacific Resort in San Diego, California. The event draws thousands of GRC professionals from the world’s leading organizations and features visionary keynotes, peer-driven sessions, and direct access to the tools and strategies reshaping enterprise risk management.

This year’s program puts agentic GRC at the fore, exploring how risk professionals can work alongside AI agents to transform their programs and drive strategic business value. The conference will feature over 45 learning sessions across Risk, Compliance, Cyber Risk, and Audit tracks, with up to 17 CPE credits available. Attendees will also get early access to new Optro product capabilities and the opportunity to connect with GRC leaders from the world’s largest organizations. Featured speakers include:

• Olabode Olaoke, Lead, Cybersecurity Risk Governance, Vulnerability Management, and Vendor Security at Block, and Olusegun Ajiboye, Cybersecurity Risk Manager at Block. Their session will explore how security teams are deploying AI agents across their GRC programs to continuously assess risk, enforce controls, and execute remediation before vulnerabilities become incidents.
• Jack Jones, Strategic Advisor at Black Kite and creator of the FAIR model, and Bob Maley, Chief Information Security Officer at Black Kite. Together, they will lead an interactive workshop examining best practices in cyber risk quantification, providing practical approaches to framing risk in the financial and business terms that drive decisions where it matters most.
• Erin Dempsey Heuwetter, Former Head of Audit, Risk & Compliance, Navan. Dempsey Heuwetter is a leader in GRC and fintech innovation, specializing in the transition from AI-assisted to Agentic AI workflows. Her session will discuss how AI, real-time data, and agentic workflows are enabling risk teams to anticipate emerging threats, modernize their frameworks, and keep risk profiles continuously current without adding manual burden.
• Raul Villar Jr., Chief Executive Officer at Optro. Since Villar Jr. joined in 2025, Optro has completed acquisitions of leading autonomous controls testing and AI governance solutions, surpassed $300M in ARR, and expanded into the APAC region. At CRX, he will lay out Optro’s vision for agentic GRC — what he calls the fourth era of the discipline — and make the case for why the organizations that treat risk as a competitive lever will outpace those that don’t.
• Kieran Taylor, Senior Director of Engineering at Optro, is the co-founder of Midship. After experiencing the pain of preparing for first year SOX, Taylor started Midship to augment auditors with AI-assisted tooling. His session will go beyond theory: attendees will leave with a clear picture of what AI agents actually are, how to put them to work in audit and compliance workflows, and a live look at the product in action.
• Richard Chambers, Senior Advisor, Risk and Audit at Optro, and world-renowned author, advisor, and former President of The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). His vast experience has given him a unique vantage point into the geopolitical, technological, and regulatory factors contributing to a new wave of supply chain risk. His CRX session will draw on that depth to address what the agentic shift means for the future of the audit profession and offer audit teams a grounded view of how to navigate it.

CRX is built specifically for GRC practitioners, meaning every session, every speaker, and every hallway conversation is relevant to the work attendees do every day. The event has become the destination the Optro community builds toward each year, a place to get hands-on with new product capabilities before they ship, stress-test strategies with peers facing the same pressures, and leave with a concrete plan for the year ahead. 

For teams weighing where to spend their conference budget, CRX offers something other events don’t: a room full of risk, compliance, and audit professionals all working through the industry’s agentic shift at the same time. Past attendees agree this unique environment delivers unmatched value for their teams:

• "The conference was truly inspiring. What I loved most were the detailed explanations given in the sessions about each feature, as well as the live demos showcasing every new functionality in the system.”
• "There was a great balance between platform-specific knowledge and development and discussion of industry practices and future-looking state of the profession."
• "I really enjoyed the conference this year — the energy was incredible, and the speakers were both engaging and inspiring. The networking opportunities, especially those tied to the public events, were a highlight and made it easy to connect with others across different industries.”

“As organizations navigate an increasingly complex risk landscape, CRX has established itself as a must-attend summit for GRC leaders,” said Michael Rasmussen, CEO at GRC Report. “What sets CRX apart this year is its focus on the practical reality of agentic GRC. Optro is at the forefront of this evolution, and this event provides the peer-tested strategies and technological validation that professionals need to transform risk from a defensive burden into a distinct competitive advantage.”

“Practitioners don’t want abstract concepts; they need practical strategies they can use,” said Justin Greenberger, Chief Customer Officer at Optro. “That’s why CRX is designed to be highly collaborative. We're thrilled to bring our global community together in San Diego to share real insights, inspire each other, and help teams confidently navigate the agentic future of GRC.”

To see the full agenda and register for CRX, visit optro.ai.