Summary
The Head of Resilience management for APAC-ME will be responsible for developing, implementing, and overseeing the bank’s strategy to ensure resilience against operational disruptions, cyber threats, and systemic risks. This role will lead resiliency initiatives across the Asia-Pacific and Middle East (APAC-ME) perimeter, ensuring alignment with regulatory expectations, industry best practices, emerging threats and Head Office principles/processes. The ideal candidate will collaborate closely with technology, risk management, compliance, and business leadership to enhance operational integrity and incident response capabilities. This is a high-impact role requiring deep expertise in operational resilience, operational risk management, business continuity planning and recovery strategy in a highly regulated financial environment.
The Head of Resilience management for APAC-ME will oversee the crisis management by preparing, testing and coordinating crisis.
The Head of Resilience management for APAC-ME will directly report to the Regional Head of Risk Management and control department and functionally report to Head of Resilience management Head office. He will work in close relationship with him and follow the same standard and process.
Key Responsibilities
1. Enterprise Resilience Strategy Development
· Develop and implement a comprehensive operational resiliency strategy aligned with regulatory requirements and industry standards.
· Define resilience objectives, key risk indicators (KRIs), and performance metrics to measure the effectiveness of resiliency programs.
· Collaborate with senior leadership to embed resilience principles into business and technology processes.
· Stay ahead of emerging risks, regulatory changes, and threat landscapes to refine and enhance resilience strategies.
2. Crisis Management
· Oversee the development and execution of the bank’s resilience framework, ensuring rapid response and recovery from incidents.
· Lead tabletop exercises and simulations to test cyber incident response and business recovery capabilities.
· Coordinate with internal stakeholders during crisis.
3. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR)
· Coordinate and maintain enterprise-wide business continuity and disaster recovery plans with the different stakeholders in the Entities, ensuring readiness to sustain critical business operations during disruptions.
· Coordinate and conduct with the different stakeholders in the Entities regular BC/DR testing, audits, and training sessions to validate effectiveness and improve preparedness.
· Work closely with technology teams to ensure recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) are met for critical systems.
· With the different stakeholders in the Entities, establish and maintain alternative operational processes to mitigate any disruptions.
· The different types of disruption scenarios will have to be regularly reviewed and updated according to the local structural or circumstantial situation.
4. Compliance and Governance
· Ensure compliance with all applicable legal, regulatory and internal frameworks related to, but not limited to, operational and resiliency requirements.
· With the different stakeholders in the Entities, serve as a key liaison with regulatory bodies and auditors, preparing reports and responses to inquiries regarding resilience programs.
· Develop governance frameworks, policies, and procedures to enforce resilience-related mandates across the regional organization.
· Foster a culture of compliance and resilience awareness throughout the region.
5. Third-Party and Supply Chain Resilience
· With the different stakeholders in the Entities:
o Assess and mitigate risks associated with third-party vendors, ensuring they meet the bank’s operational and resilience standards.
o Establish rigorous due diligence processes for critical suppliers, including resilience testing and contractually mandated recovery capabilities.
o Develop contingency strategies for vendor-related disruptions and ensure robust exit strategies for key service providers.
o Collaborate with procurement and risk management teams to integrate resilience considerations into vendor selection and onboarding processes.
6. Leadership and Stakeholder Engagement
· Lead a cross-functional resiliency team, fostering collaboration between IT, BCP manager, risk management, compliance, ISS and Business Lines units.
· Provide executive leadership with regular briefings on resilience posture, key risks, and strategic initiatives.
· Advocate for resilience investments, ensuring adequate funding and resource allocation for critical initiatives.
· Champion a culture of resilience by driving awareness, training, and engagement across the region.
Core Competencies
Experience & Expertise
o 10+ years of experience in operational resilience, business continuity, or risk management within the financial sector.
o Proven leadership experience.
o Deep understanding of regulatory requirements in Asia DORA, with experience managing regulatory interactions.
o Bachelor’s or Master Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business continuity or equivalent,
o Professional certification such as CBCM, CBCI, CBCP (preferred).
Technical Skills
o Expertise in incident response methodologies, business continuity planning and in cyber resilience frameworks.
o String knowledge of CIB activities in order to be able to talk with the Business Lines and understand their constraints
o Strong knowledge of operational resilience risk management, threat intelligence, and IT disaster recovery strategies.
o Ability to analyze complex risks and develop practical, actionable resilience strategies.
o Familiarity with cloud resilience, third-party risk management, and systemic risk considerations in the financial sector.
Soft Skills & Leadership
o Strong executive presence with the ability to engage and influence C-suite leaders and board members.
o Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and drive enterprise-wide resilience initiatives.
o Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with experience presenting to regulators, auditors, and senior stakeholders.
o Ability to thrive in a high-pressure environment, managing crises and business disruptions with a structured and strategic approach.
o Expected to work with stakeholders from different time zone (Asia, NY, London, Paris)
