Ncontracts Publishes New Book, The Upside of Third-Party Risk Management: The Practitioner's Guide to Turning Vendor Risk into Strategic Value

Third installment in The Upside Series co-authored by Ncontracts Founder and CEO Michael Berman and VP of Risk Management Michael Carpenter

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ncontracts, the leading provider of integrated compliance, risk, and vendor management solutions to the financial industry, today announced the release of The Upside of Third-Party Risk Management: The Practitioner's Guide to Turning Vendor Risk into Strategic Value, the third book in the company's Upside Series: Strategic Success for Financial Institutions.

Co-authored by risk management veteran Michael Carpenter and Ncontracts founder and CEO Michael Berman, the book builds on the series' core premise that compliance and risk functions are strategic assets, not administrative burdens. Written for real-world practitioners, the guide provides actionable frameworks they can use to protect their organization from operational disruption and create a measurable competitive advantage.

"Most organizations already have vendor management programs in place," said Carpenter. "What this book addresses is the gap between a program that satisfies requirements and one that actually reduces exposure and improves operational performance."

The book walks through the vendor management lifecycle end to end, from strategy and risk appetite to due diligence, contracting, and performance monitoring. A central theme is ecosystem thinking, recognizing that vendors don't operate in isolation, and that risk accumulates across integrations, dependencies, and shared systems in ways that traditional oversight approaches often miss.

"Effective third-party risk management isn't dictated by the size of your institution or how long you've had a program," said Berman. "It's about whether your program is connected to how the business operates. This book provides the roadmap to make that connection — wherever you're starting from.”

Author Backgrounds & Series History

• Michael Carpenter, a U.S. Army veteran, brings more than three decades of experience managing risk and compliance programs at institutions ranging from community banks and credit unions to JPMorgan Chase and KeyBank.
• Michael Berman spent his early career as general counsel navigating complex regulatory matters before founding Ncontracts to revolutionize how financial organizations manage operational risk.

The new release follows Berman’s previous titles in the series: The Upside of Risk (2021) and The Upside of Compliance (2024), co-authored with Ncontracts VP of Compliance Stephanie Lyon.

Availability

The Upside of Third-Party Risk Management is available on Amazon in both softcover and eBook formats. Attendees of the Ncontracts TPRM Bootcamp (June 23–25) will receive a complimentary digital copy.

About Ncontracts

Ncontracts empowers banks, credit unions, mortgage companies, fintechs, and wealth management firms to confidently manage risk — including enterprise, compliance, and third-party risk — in a complex, rapidly changing financial landscape. Today, more than 5,000 financial organizations trust Ncontracts to make risk and compliance management a strategic advantage. Ncontracts has been named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America for seven consecutive years.