Strategic Leader, Financial Services Operational Resilience in Manchester

Our clients are typically some of the largest and most influential organisations in Financial Services. They operate in an ever‑changing environment characterised by uncertainty, where their reputational value is often determined by how they respond to disruption, risk and opportunity. Whether it be cyber threats, political and regulatory change or disruptive innovation, our clients need to navigate shocks, high impact events and change. Our Reputation, Risk, Crisis and Resilience (RRCR) team supports clients in this intellectually challenging context by helping them better plan for and build resilience to strategic risks, issues and incidents, and crises.

Responsibilities for this role include:

• Supporting go‑to‑market and business development activity to grow account relationships and deliver commercial success
• Leading complex client engagements and delivery, including responsibility for contracts, budgets and junior team members
• Delivering engagements to the highest quality, on time, on budget and within established risk processes
• Providing subject matter advice to clients across the range of crisis and resilience services provided by RRCR and related internal teams
• Leading client relationships across a portfolio of organisations across Financial Services to build and enhance relationships, drive new opportunities, and expand the services offered
• Leading senior discussions with C‑Suits and boards to raise awareness of crisis and resilience issues and themes in the UK, EU and global markets
• Developing new products and services, including digital and AI, to support our offerings
• Building our sector presence through innovation, eminence and thought leadership
• Leading internal projects and fulfilling key team roles to build the business in a sustainable manner

Example client engagements could include:

• The design and implementation of a large‑scale resilience transformation programme to meet global financial services regulatory requirements
• Contingency planning for a range of high impact events (such as a catastrophic cyberattack, critical supply failure or pandemics)
• Supporting operational readiness programmes for major events and change initiatives (e.g. mergers and acquisitions, technology 'go live' and strategic product launches)
• Crisis and incident framework design, crisis management exercising and resilience testing
• Deploying live responses to support a client in managing an issue or crisis, and post‑event reviews following a high‑profile incident or crisis

Qualifications and professional experience:

• Extensive knowledge of organisational resilience across several disciplines, including related regulations and evolving regulator thinking
• Extensive knowledge of operational resilience and business continuity, ideally from large and complex financial services organisations. Experience in any of the following resilience‑related disciplines is desirable: Technology and digital resilience, Third‑party resilience, Technology / AI supported or enabled testing, Cloud resilience, IT Service Continuity and Disaster Recovery, Crisis management, Contingency planning, Scenario risk modelling and planning, Operational Risk, Enterprise Risk Management
• Track record of commercial success in Financial Services, demonstrating ability to scale and grow accounts and develop new relationships for resilience services
• Comfortable presenting at all levels, with the ability to articulate complex resilience concepts clearly, influence senior leaders (C‑Suite and boards), and build trust. Includes strong communication, presentation, and business writing skills
• Ability to understand how strategy, purpose, and values shape resilience priorities, integrating these into planning and investment decisions, and interpreting the financial implications of resilience investments
• Track record of building and maintaining strong relationships with external and internal senior stakeholders. Proven ability to build inclusive and collaborative teams, fostering a culture of learning, and supporting clients and junior colleagues through coaching and mentoring
• Experience in designing and leading testing, simulations, pilots, and exercises to test and refine resilience capabilities, embedding lessons learned into preparedness and improvement
• Ability to quickly understand complex organisations, their operating models, interdependencies across systems, supporting operations and technology, and associated risks, including mapping critical functions and vulnerabilities
• Ability to embed resilience principles into organisational systems and frameworks, and to integrate resilience metrics into risk and operational dashboards
• Collaborative, proactive, and results‑oriented attitude, with an openness to learning, a willingness to challenge assumptions, and an ability to adapt quickly to evolving contexts
• Willingness to adopt a trusted and flexible working routine, managing own time to drive results, traveling according to client needs (including internationally when required), and working additional office hours depending on project demands