VP, IT Resilience and Preparedness

Synchrony - Stamford, CT

Full-time - Senior

Remote - Stamford, CT

Credit Intermediation and Related Activities

About the position

The VP, IT Resilience and Preparedness is responsible for developing, implementing, and maintaining operational recovery plans to ensure the resilience of IT infrastructure during disasters or disruptions. This strategic role involves leading disaster recovery testing programs, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and continuously refining recovery frameworks to safeguard business operations. The position requires a proactive approach to identifying resilience risks and ensuring preparedness to minimize IT disruptions.

Responsibilities

• Implement and manage the enterprise-wide disaster recovery (DR) strategy for IT systems in collaboration with business continuity teams.
• Develop and maintain disaster recovery plans and technical recovery procedures to minimize the impact of IT disruptions on business operations.
• Define DR and resilience requirements in alignment with the company's cloud strategy.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate IT DR considerations into incident response plans.
• Lead and coordinate disaster recovery exercises, tests, and simulations to validate the effectiveness of recovery plans and procedures.
• Establish and enforce backup and recovery standards to ensure data integrity and availability in the event of a disaster.
• Monitor and report on the status of disaster recovery activities, including recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs), to senior management.
• Develop and maintain a strategic vision for IT that aligns with business objectives and risk appetite.
• Build processes to continuously ensure resilience is effective and alert leadership when preparedness does not meet requirements.
• Collaborate with development and product teams to ensure that applications and systems are designed and implemented with reliability and resilience in mind.
• Monitor systems for resilience defects and identify improvement opportunities.
• Provide technical leadership, drive projects, define charter for the team, and plan short-term & long-term resilience and preparedness roadmaps.
• Conduct regular risk assessments to identify potential threats and vulnerabilities to the organization's critical business processes and infrastructure.
• Create accountability by defining and managing SLA/SLO/SLI for the team and align them with partners & customers.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree and minimum of 8+ years of hands-on IT experience within a data center or in lieu of degree, a High School Diploma and 12+ years of hands-on IT experience within a data center, project and personnel management experience.
• Minimum 3 years of personnel management experience.
• Minimum 3 years of experience in Project Management.
• Technical understanding of technology recovery and knowledge of Cloud solutions.
• Excellent problem solving, critical thinking, and analytical skills with the ability to communicate concepts to technical as well as non-technical audiences.
• Effective written and oral communication skills, including experience developing and delivering briefings to top management.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience in defining and leading Disaster Recovery testing programs.
• Experience in developing and managing testing and exercise programs to ensure the effectiveness of the company's disaster recovery plans.
• Experience in monitoring and reporting on the performance of the company's disaster recovery plans, including identifying areas for improvement and recommending appropriate solutions.
• Experience in defining and measuring Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) for mission critical systems.
• Have initiated and driven critical projects based on emergent business needs, scaling from strategy development to tool and solution selections / development, implementation and running the show.
• Systematic problem-solving approach, coupled with strong communication skills and a sense of ownership and drive.
• Have led cross-functional teams in developing business continuity and disaster recovery strategies, including response and recovery plans, to minimize the impacts of disruptions on critical business processes and enable timely recovery.

Benefits

• Annual bonus based on individual and company performance.
• Remote work options available.
• Flexibility to work from home or in the office.
• Paid time off for volunteering activities.