From Consulant to Catalyst - Intreis and the GRC Shift at ServiceNow

Back in 2012, I spent many evenings and weekends on the ServiceNow Community, answering forum posts, helping people troubleshoot tricky platform issues, and doing whatever I could to level up. (Shoutout to October 2013 - Member of the Month was a proud moment!)

While I was busy solving problems post by post, something bigger was brewing behind the scenes: a small group of consultants saw an opportunity to transform how organizations approached governance, risk, and compliance. That group became Intreis - and their work helped shape ServiceNow's entire GRC offering.

This is part of a series I’m writing to inspire myself and other builders by shining a light on companies that ServiceNow has acquired. If you’re dreaming of building something yourself, these stories aren’t just history, they’re playbooks with lessons we can learn.

Though my personal memory of Intreis is limited, I’ve learned that they ran a highly focused consultancy around Governance, Risk, and Compliance. ServiceNow noticed and wanted them to help.

Kristopher Markham and Morgan Hunter

Every great company starts with a couple of people who see things differently. In the case of Intreis this was Kristopher Markham and Morgan Hunter.

Kristopher had deep technical knowledge of ServiceNow, and Morgan brought real world experience from her time at Kantar IT Partnership.

In hindsight, a clear opportunity had presented itself: to bring governance, risk, and compliance practices into the same workflow-driven systems that were already transforming IT operations. Intreis (wayback link) was formed in 2012 to explore that opportunity, and in just a few years, they would help define the foundation for what became ServiceNow’s GRC product.

What did Intreis do?

Rather than treating compliance as a siloed function that was just a box to check, Intreis embedded it directly into ServiceNow’s ITSM workflows, allowing businesses to streamline both operations and compliance. The idea was to leverage existing platforms, like ServiceNow, to build frameworks that didn’t just help businesses meet compliance requirements, they helped them operate more efficiently, too.

The Acquistion

In 2015, after a few years of refining their approach and proving its value, ServiceNow recognized the opportunity to deepen their GRC offering and acquired Intreis. This acquisition wasn’t just about adding another tool to the GRC stack. It was about deepening the GRC capabilities of ServiceNow’s platform. Kristopher and Morgan, having already worked closely with ServiceNow, helped shape this offering, bringing practical, real-world experience to the table. Once there Kristopher worked on expanding the GRC product, and Morgan helped partners and ServiceNow strategy around said partners.

The Legacy

GRC is still a large part of the platform and companies solely focus on it today. This product wouldn’t be where it was without this acquisition. If you’re using the Unified Compliance Framework you’ve benefited from this acquisition.

What I’m taking from This

Make compliance work for the business - Intreis didn’t build a tool. They solved a real problem by embedding compliance into existing workflows. This was essential to operational effectiveness.

The power of deep, hands-on experience - Kristopher and Morgan’s time at Fruition Partners and Kantar IT gave them a wealth of knowledge about the challenges businesses face when integrating compliance. This insight was essential in shaping how GRC could be delivered more effectively within ServiceNow.

Entrepreneurship never stops - Even after their time with ServiceNow, Kristopher and Morgan continued to innovate by founding new ventures (Serentiy EHS, and Medusaas). Their journey is a reminder that the spirit of entrepreneurship is about continual growth and the pursuit of new opportunities.