Business Continuity Management Specialist - Randburg at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• To provide specialist advice and support in area of specialisation enabling the effective implementation of business continuity frameworks.

Job Description

Are you ready to make a difference?

• Our Converged Security Office (CSO) prides itself in its unique structure that sees an integration and collaboration model between our Information Risk, Cyber, Resilience, Physical Security & Forensics teams to ensure effective risk management across all disciplines.  It also carries the responsibility of owning, operationally supporting and maintaining specialist security services to safeguard the confidentiality, integrity and availability of infrastructure and information to our customers in order to meet industry and regulatory requirements and good practice.
• You will be tasked with support the Resilience Partners, Business Units and Head: Resilience. Your responsibilities include supporting the Resilience Partners to deliver an acceptable Risk Appetite position and assisting with ensuring compliance against the Group Resilience Policy.  You will also assist the Resilience Partners with the development, maintenance, validation and improvement of a business aligned, efficient and effective Resilience Programme (which also includes for the Business Continuity Management components not in scope for the Resilience Policy).

What you’ll get to do:

The role is within the Resilience team in CSO and your responsibilities will include the following:

• Support and deliver against the business units Resilience strategy, ensuring the establishment of effective governance to maintain the Resilience (including recovery) capabilities to the Business Units Risk Appetite position
• Source and prepare materials for the various forums and steering committees responsible for reporting on Business Resilience risk
• Support Resilience Partners in the preparation and circulation of papers and support for business unit Chief Operating Officers
• Support the Resilience Partners in presenting resilience risk materials at the various forums and steering committees where required
• Sourcing information and providing status updates on the resilience status of Business Units
• Support the Resilience Partners with risk management activities as well as the tracking of control implementation to mitigate resilience risk within the Business Units
• Support the Resilience Partners with sourcing information for the completion of Dispensations, Waivers and Breaches of the Group Resilience Policy and associated standards
• Support the Resilience Partners with sourcing the required information for regulatory engagement where relevant
• Validate all recovery strategies based on teams plans as required by the Group Resilience Policy and associated standards
• Perform reviews, and escalate where needed, to ensure that staff contact details are captured and up to date for effective call cascade testing
• Plan and execute call cascade tests on an annual basis, or as agreed by specific business units.
• Support business area in identifying and documenting Front-to-Back processes and help define the overall requirements that support the Front-to-Back processes
• Ensure Front-to-Back Process activities are adequately captured in the toolsets and maintained
• Ensure resilience source information is appropriately managed by the respective owners to ensure Front-to-Back process risk profiling is accurate
• Ensure dependencies within the Front-to-Back process are mapped to ensure that end-to-end risk profiling is accurate
• Ensure that all gaps, as highlighted by the Front-to-Back Process risk profile, are captured and conveyed to the appropriate Resilience Partners
• Track the implementation of controls and processes to mitigate resilience gaps and provide status updates to the Resilience Partners
• Define and validate process recovery strategies based on the risk profiles of processes and capture the associated team recovery plans in the Resilience toolsets
• Facilitate the review and sign-off process with team owners
• Ensure team plans are maintained and within review compliance
• Support the Resilience Partners in assessing new business, products and/or services to ensure it has the appropriate risk profiling and resilience provisioning as required by the Group Resilience Policy

What do you need to get in?

• Excellent verbal and written communication capabilities with the ability to interact and influence at all levels of the organisation.
• NQF Level 6: B Degree in Risk Management or any Financial degree equivalent
• Qualification in Business Continuity Management
• Excellent facilitation and presentation skills
• Strong analytical abilities and decision-making capability, with a methodical approach, sound judgement and close attention to detail
• Ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines
• Experience in business resilience and continuity, theoretical and practical, with an understanding of these disciplines within the financial services industry
• Knowledge of threats, risks, impacts and associated mitigations as they relate to business resilience within a major banking organisation
• Knowledge of relevant regulatory standards and industry best practice (e.g. BCI Good Practice Guidelines, ISO22301)
• Understands and leverages the use of technology, integrating into overall business strategies and solutions where appropriate
• Experience of working in a relationship management, advisory or consultancy role
• Experience in the planning and executing of recovery strategy testing
• Experience in the financial services industry
• The job holder may be required to travel, both within South Africa and Africa
• Graduate level caliber with proven experience within a business environment
• Proven competency in use of MS Office applications, specifically Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Member of Business Continuity Institute (desirable)

If you’re passionate about working in a fast-paced environment and contributing to the exciting world of Security by leading from the front, we would love to hear from you!

Education

• Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)