Senior Expert – Operational Resilience

Operational resilience has become a strategic priority for global organizations facing increasing cyber threats, geopolitical uncertainty, regulatory scrutiny, and operational disruption. This role offers the opportunity to shape and steer resilience capabilities across a highly international and complex business environment. 

We are seeking a Senior Expert in Operational Resilience to join a global security and resilience function. This is a senior subject matter expert role focused on governance, resilience lifecycle management, crisis preparedness, and operational execution across a multinational organisation with more than 100,000 employees worldwide.

The position combines Business Continuity Management (BCM), crisis management and operational resilience governance helping ensure critical business operations remain resilient and recover effectively during disruptions.

This is not a pure “check-the-box” compliance role. The organisation is looking for someone pragmatic, operationally minded, and capable of bringing fresh perspectives to resilience management at scale.

Our client is a highly people-focused organisation and this role combines strategic visibility, international collaboration, and meaningful operational impact; ideal for someone looking to drive resilience maturity beyond traditional compliance frameworks.

The Role

Operational Resilience & BCM Governance

·        Lead and evolve the global governance framework for Business Continuity Management and operational resilience across international entities

·        Define, monitor, and continuously improve resilience standards, controls, KPIs, and lifecycle processes

·        Support the rollout and maturity of resilience capabilities across a large matrix organisation with multiple legal entities and business lines

·        Drive alignment between resilience governance, incident management, and crisis management functions

·        Support budgeting, governance reviews, and gap remediation planning across regional entities

Crisis & Incident Management

·        Contribute to enterprise-wide crisis management and incident response activities

·        Ensure operational resilience measures are integrated into emergency and crisis response processes

·        Help strengthen organisational preparedness through exercises, simulations, and response planning

·        Support the development of operational resilience strategies that go beyond theoretical compliance requirements

Global Stakeholder Management

·        Act as a key governance and steering contact for local resilience and protection teams globally

·        Coordinate with regional business units and international stakeholders across multiple countries and legal entities

·        Build strong working relationships across a highly matrixed organisational structure

·        Interface with senior leadership on resilience priorities, governance maturity, and operational readiness

Training, Controls & Continuous Improvement

·        Define global training requirements and coordinate the delivery of BCM and crisis management programs through service providers and partner teams

·        Establish governance processes for monitoring compliance and resilience effectiveness

·        Conduct governance reviews and support local entities in identifying and closing resilience gaps

·        Drive continuous improvement initiatives to make resilience programs more operational, practical, and business-focused

Candidate Profile

Required Experience

·        10+ years of experience in Business Continuity Management, operational resilience, crisis management, or related fields

·        Strong experience operating within complex international organisations or matrix environments

·        Proven track record of leading governance and resilience initiatives across multiple business units or regions

·        Ability to balance strategic governance with operational execution

·        Strong communication and stakeholder management skills with experience engaging senior leadership

·        Fluent English and German

·        Additional languages are highly valued

Preferred Experience

·        Experience in financial services, insurance, consulting, critical infrastructure, or other highly regulated industries

·        Exposure to operational resilience regulations and frameworks such as DORA or related resilience standards

·        Experience designing or steering global BCM lifecycles, resilience reviews, and crisis exercises

·        Practical and operational mindset rather than purely compliance-driven experience

·        Ability to bring new ideas and fresh perspectives into established resilience environments