Job Purpose:
The Senior Business Continuity Specialist is responsible for the day-to-day management and continuous improvement of the university’s business continuity program, ensuring that critical functions, services, and operations can withstand, respond to, and recover from disruptive incidents. The role leads business impact analyses, continuity planning, readiness assessments, and exercising activities, while advising service owners and senior stakeholders on recovery priorities, operational dependencies, and resilience gaps.
Key Responsibilities:
Business Continuity Program Management:
- Manage the day-to-day operation and continuous improvement of the university’s business continuity program, ensuring that frameworks, processes, and documentation remain current, effective, and fit for purpose.
- Lead business impact analyses (BIAs) to identify critical university functions, assess the consequences of disruption, establish recovery priorities, and determine appropriate recovery time and recovery point objectives, where applicable.
- Map critical operational dependencies, including people, systems, facilities, data, suppliers, and interdependent university functions, and challenge recovery assumptions to ensure that objectives are realistic and achievable.
- Develop, maintain, and periodically review the institutional business continuity plan and standardized continuity playbooks for approval by the Head of Risk & Business Continuity.
- Ensure that business continuity methodologies, documentation, and practices are aligned with applicable NCEMA requirements, ISO 22301, and relevant institutional policies.
Business Engagement and Readiness:
- Serve as the primary business continuity contact for service owners, department heads, and other relevant stakeholders, providing guidance on continuity requirements, recovery priorities, and preparedness.
- Facilitate workshops to support the completion and validation of BIAs, continuity plans, and playbooks, ensuring consistency and conformance with established standards.
- Challenge recovery objectives, resource assumptions, dependencies, and proposed recovery arrangements to assess their adequacy against identified business needs.
- Promote business continuity awareness and preparedness across the university, supporting stakeholders in understanding their roles and responsibilities during disruptive incidents.
Exercising and Testing:
- Develop and lead the annual business continuity exercise and testing program, using appropriate scenario-based, tabletop, walkthrough, and recovery testing approaches.
- Coordinate exercises with relevant university functions and stakeholders to validate the effectiveness of continuity plans, recovery arrangements, escalation procedures, and decision-making processes.
- Test the transition from institutional continuity plans to operational playbooks, ensuring that responsibilities, escalation routes, communications, and recovery actions are clearly defined.
- Document exercise outcomes, assess performance against established objectives, and identify weaknesses in plans, capabilities, and recovery arrangements.
- Agree remediation actions with service owners, assign accountability and target dates, and monitor progress through to closure.
Internal Advisory and Incident Support:
- Provide specialist advice on business continuity and operational resilience in relation to institutional strategy, new projects, organizational changes, critical services, technology initiatives, and third-party or supplier dependencies.
- Assess the potential continuity implications of proposed changes and advise stakeholders on appropriate mitigation, preparedness, and recovery measures.
- Provide continuity and recovery guidance during incidents and disruptive events, supporting relevant stakeholders in activating plans, prioritizing critical services, and coordinating recovery activities.
- Coordinate post-incident reviews to assess the effectiveness of response and recovery arrangements, capture lessons learned, and identify improvements to institutional resilience.
- Advise the Head of Risk & Business Continuity on emerging continuity risks, preparedness concerns, and material gaps requiring management attention.
Reporting, Governance, and Compliance:
- Prepare regular reports on the university’s business continuity and resilience posture, including BIA coverage, continuity plan and playbook completeness, exercise results, recovery readiness, and outstanding remediation actions.
- Develop clear, evidence-based insights on key resilience gaps, trends, and improvement priorities to support management oversight and informed decision-making.
- Draft business continuity and resilience updates for relevant committees and governance forums, highlighting material risks, progress against agreed actions, and areas requiring escalation.
- Maintain appropriate documentation and supporting evidence to demonstrate the implementation and effectiveness of business continuity arrangements.
- Support regulatory and assurance activities, including requests for evidence of compliance with applicable NCEMA requirements and relevant business continuity standards.
Other Duties:
Perform all other duties as reasonably directed by the line manager that are commensurate with these functional objectives.
Qualifications and Criteria:
- A bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
- Certification (for example CBCP, MBCI, Operational Resilience) or equivalent evidenced experience.
Essential:
- At least 7 years of relevant professional experience in business continuity, operational resilience, disaster recovery, or a closely related risk and resilience function.
- Demonstrated experience leading business impact analyses, identifying critical business functions and dependencies, establishing recovery priorities, and developing or maintaining business continuity plans and operational playbooks.
- Proven experience designing, coordinating, and evaluating business continuity exercises, recovery tests, and incident simulations, including documenting findings and driving corrective actions through to closure.
- Experience advising senior stakeholders, department heads, and service owners on continuity risks, recovery strategies, preparedness, and resilience improvements.
- Practical experience supporting incident coordination, recovery activities, post-incident reviews, and the continuous improvement of continuity arrangements.
- Working knowledge of ISO 22301, applicable UAE NCEMA requirements, and business continuity governance, assurance, and reporting practices.
Preferred:
- Relevant professional certifications in business continuity, operational resilience, crisis management, or risk management.
- Experience working in the UAE or wider Middle East, with familiarity with the regional regulatory and business continuity environment.
- Experience in a complex, multi-function organization, preferably a university, research institution, or similarly knowledge-intensive environment.
- Experience supporting management committees, regulatory reviews, or assurance activities through structured resilience reporting and evidence-based assessments.