Overview
The Crisis and Event Response Lead will play a pivotal role in enhancing an organization's resilience during critical events by developing effective response strategies and structures. Collaborating with various internal teams, the contractor will assess potential failure points, design and conduct comprehensive training exercises, and ensure that critical decisions can be made under pressure. This position focuses on ensuring sustainability of operations amid crises and embedding systemic changes for improved response in future scenarios.
Responsibilities
- Assess organizational response capabilities and identify potential failure points.
- Design and facilitate exercises that test specialist and third-party responses.
- Establish clear decision-making structures and delegated authorities under pressure.
- Maintain situational awareness in live environments, distinguishing known facts from assumptions.
- Develop frameworks for ongoing recovery planning during active responses.
- Articulate clear conditions and processes for standing down responses.
- Convert lessons learned into actionable changes and verify their implementation.
Requirements
- Extensive experience in crisis response during live events, not just post-event reviews.
- Proven ability to design and facilitate complex exercises for senior stakeholders.
- Strong communication skills with a capability to convey critical information to executives.
- Familiarity with UK operational resilience frameworks (SS1/21, PS21/3, SS2/21, DORA).
- Experience within the regulated financial services sector, particularly with PRA-supervised firms.
- Technical fluency to engage in conversations with technology leaders about recovery sequencing and dependencies.
- Knowledge of relevant standards (Cyber Essentials, NIST CSF, ISO 27001) and certifications (CRISC, CISM, CISA).
- Coaching and debriefing skills to foster constructive feedback in high-pressure situations.