AI governance · AIMS · assurance · regulatory readiness
Varai helps regulated organisations govern AI with confidence. We design the management systems, evaluation frameworks and oversight that turn ISO 42001 and the EU AI Act from obligations into something your board, your auditors and your regulators can rely on.
The approach
Much AI governance work stops at a policy document. Ours starts with the obligations that apply to you, and ends with an operating system your auditors, regulators and board can rely on.
We work alongside your legal, risk and compliance teams to turn the obligations they identify, across ISO 42001, the EU AI Act and FCA and PRA expectations, into a clear view of where your AI practice stands today.
We design and implement the AI management system that closes the gap: policies, controls, risk and impact assessments, evaluation criteria, and a clear trail of evidence.
We set the oversight and evaluation frameworks that keep AI performing as intended, then leave you audit ready, with the reviews that hold as regulation evolves.
What we do
Engaged together as an end to end programme, or individually where you need a specific capability.
Design and implementation of an AI Management System to ISO/IEC 42001, from gap analysis and scope through to controls, the Statement of Applicability and certification readiness. This is where accountability, fairness, transparency and human oversight are embedded across the organisation, not left to chance.
Independent evaluation of whether AI systems perform as intended, and the assurance evidence to prove it. We design the evaluation and oversight frameworks that test systems against your AI policy and the standards that apply, working alongside your technical teams rather than replacing them.
Two complementary disciplines, done properly. AI risk assessment identifies and treats the operational, technical and compliance risks a system carries, aligned to ISO/IEC 23894. AI impact assessment examines how a system affects the people and communities it touches, aligned to ISO/IEC 42005 and EU AI Act expectations for high-risk systems.
One programme, mapped across many frameworks. We bring the EU AI Act, ISO 42001 and FCA and PRA expectations together into a single, coordinated readiness programme, so your teams prepare once rather than separately for each. We align your governance to these frameworks; your legal and compliance functions own the final regulatory interpretation.
Bringing AI governance from board mandate to operating reality takes more than a framework. It takes someone who has run large, regulated programmes before. Behind Varai are fifteen years of leading complex change inside banking, payments and standards bodies, and that delivery discipline, the stakeholders, workstreams, milestones and audit ready evidence, is what now carries an AI governance initiative through to something that actually operates.
Forged in regulation
Varai's approach is shaped by years of assurance and regulatory delivery inside some of the most heavily governed sectors. That grounding is what makes the AI governance work credible, and what lets it speak the language of a regulator, a board and an engineering team in the same room.
Investment banking, corporate banking, wealth management and payments, where regulatory scrutiny is highest.
Years inside a national standards body, on AI regulatory and product certification programmes.
Large scale transformation and assurance delivery across regulated operational estates.
Governance and validation work in highly regulated, evidence driven biotechnology settings.
Half a decade in AI governance, built on fifteen years in regulated industry. Governing AI before the questions arrived.
Varai brings together two things regulated organisations rarely find in one place: real depth in governing AI, and the delivery discipline to make that governance operate. The arc below is how that combination was built.
The practice
Varai is led by its founder and draws on a trusted network of specialists, assembled around each engagement and matched to the work. You get senior, hands on involvement, with the right team built around it.
Credentials
Varai is backed by formal study across AI, finance and assurance, from institutions recognised in each.
AI & governance
Artificial Intelligence & AI governance
Lead Implementer, AI management systems
AI & Cognitive Autonomy
Finance & technology
Financial Technology with AI
Trinity College
CAIP, awarded by OXETHICA
Assurance & delivery
Certified assurance and quality discipline
University of Washington
Why Varai
Many bring one or the other. Varai designs the governance system and sets the evaluation framework that proves the AI inside it, so the controls and the evidence line up.
We work alongside legal, risk and compliance, not around them. We turn their interpretation of the rules into a working management system and the evidence to support it.
Fifteen years inside banking, finance and standards bodies. We know how regulated organisations actually work, and what holds up when an auditor asks for the evidence.
Whether you are starting an ISO 42001 programme, preparing for the EU AI Act, or need an evaluation framework for a system already in production, let us talk about where you are and what comes next.