Application Open:
Full-Time
Job Purpose:
MBZUAI is seeking an experienced Information Security Manager to lead the university’s information security governance, strategy, risk management, and benchmarking initiatives. This role will be responsible for developing security policies, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, aligning security programs with industry best practices, and benchmarking against peer institutions. The candidate will work closely with internal stakeholders, regulatory bodies, and external partners to enhance the university’s overall cybersecurity posture while supporting academic and research needs.
Key Responsibilities:
Information Security Governance & Strategy
- Develop and implement the university’s information security strategy in alignment with institutional goals.
- Establish and maintain security policies, frameworks, and standards based on ISO 27001, NIST, GDPR, and UAE regulatory requirements.
- Conduct benchmarking studies to compare the university’s security maturity with peer institutions and global best practices.
- Drive cybersecurity governance programs, ensuring alignment with university leadership and compliance bodies.
- Oversee the university-wide cybersecurity roadmap, ensuring continuous improvements in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC).
Risk Management & Compliance
- Lead cyber risk assessments, ensuring that security risks are identified, assessed, and mitigated.
- Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations (GDPR, UAE NESA, ADHICS) and university-specific security requirements.
- Collaborate with legal and compliance teams to develop data protection and privacy programs.
- Develop and enforce third-party risk management (TPRM) policies to assess security risks from vendors, cloud services, and partners.
- Support internal and external security audits, preparing reports and tracking remediation efforts.
Benchmarking & Best Practices
- Conduct comparative analyses of security programs across local and international universities.
- Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) and security metrics to track the university’s progress in cybersecurity maturity.
- Recommend best practices and strategic improvements based on findings from benchmarking studies.
- Engage with higher education security forums and consortiums to stay updated on emerging trends in university cybersecurity.
Security Awareness & Training
- Develop and implement security awareness programs tailored for faculty, staff, and students.
- Work with HR and academic departments to integrate cybersecurity training into employee onboarding and faculty development programs.
- Lead phishing simulations, cybersecurity workshops, and awareness campaigns.
Security Governance for Research & Academic Support
- Ensure secure research data handling and compliance with academic cybersecurity requirements.
- Collaborate with research departments, IT teams, and ethics committees to ensure cybersecurity in university research projects.
- Develop security policies for data sharing, intellectual property protection, and research partnerships.
Soft Skills & Leadership Responsibilities
- Strong leadership and governance skills to drive security initiatives at the university level.
- Ability to collaborate with senior leadership, academic departments, and regulatory bodies.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience preparing security reports for executives.
- Strong analytical and benchmarking skills to evaluate cybersecurity maturity against other institutions.
- Ability to influence policy development and advocate for security best practices.
Other duties
- At the direction of the management execute other duties commensurate with these functional responsibilities.
Academic Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in information technology/science, Information Security, Risk Management, or a related field.
- Postgraduate degree preferred.
Professional Experience:
Essential
- 10+ years of experience in cybersecurity, governance, risk, or compliance, preferably in a higher education or government institution.
- Ability to engage with academic leadership and research stakeholders to balance security with institutional needs.
- Strong experience in security governance, compliance, benchmarking, and policy development.
- Demonstrable experience in any of the following cyber security domain areas: data level encryption, key management systems, web certifications, incident response and management, application awareness, identity awareness, identity and access management, data handling and classification, web application firewalls, next gen firewalls, network zoning and segmentation, cyber resiliency, secure coding, fraud investigation and response, multi-factor authentication, identity and access management, DLP, forensics, BCP/DR, security within SDLC.
- Experience effectively leading and managing projects in an IT setting.
- Demonstrated experience effectively utilizing application knowledge, systems networking, and technical skills to correctly install and configure application software.
- Proficiency in quantitative and qualitative data analysis, analytics, and reporting.
- Demonstrable knowledge and understanding of continuous quality improvement.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills with competency in high-level report writing and presenting visualizations of findings and recommendations.
- Ability to attain and maintain appropriate training and certifications for supported hardware and software platforms.
Preferred
- Certifications: CISM, CRISC, ISO 27001
- Previous supervisory experience in an IT setting.
