Manager: Business Continuity Management / Strategic Projects at Auditor-General of South Africa

Job description

Strategic Function

• Contributes to the formulation and drive the implementation of the organisation business continuity strategy.
• Drive the development and maintenance of the business continuity strategy and support the CFO and AGSA's strategic objectives.
• Coordinates all strategic initiatives and deliverables assigned by the SM aligned to the CFO office and portfolio.
• Serves as a strategic advisor to the SM, understanding challenges and provides recommendations on any allocation.
• Coordinate the reporting for the BCM on a monthly and quarterly basis.
• Provides decision-support to the SM and advises where applicable on strategic matters relating to the CFO organisational strategic commitments.

Strategic support 

• Work with all functional business areas to develop and maintain an organisational wide business continuity plan/program/process that addresses business recovery and emergency response management (crisis management).
• Development, implementation and maintenance of Business Continuity Management policy and procedures.
• Participate with the planning and implementation for Business Continuity Management (BCM) audits.
• Coordinate and facilitate regular training, simulation exercises and awareness programs to enhance the organisation's preparedness and response capabilities.
• Establish and maintain effective communication channels and protocols to ensure timely and accurate dissemination of information during a crisis or disruption.
• Collaborate with ICT to support Disaster recovery plan testing.
• Monitor and evaluate emerging trends, technologies, and regulatory changes related to Business Continuity Management.
• Compilation of various reporting (E.g. BCP status reports, incident reports) preparing presentations.
• Serve as a point of contact for internal and external stakeholders during a crisis or disruption.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders like Facilities, Risk and Ethics, OHS, and Security to support adequacy in risk mitigation strategies.
• Facilitate digital transformation for Business Continuity Management.
• Coordinate the design, planning, and execution of strategic initiatives within the CFO Office, ensuring alignment with organizational priorities and providing comprehensive project management support for high-impact deliverables.
• Drafts and coordinate detailed project charters to guide the governance, execution, and performance tracking of strategic CFO-led and cross-functional initiatives, ensuring effective oversight and accountability.
• Manage changes in project scope, schedule and budget including the prescribed change request process.
• Schedule, facilitate and co-ordinate steering committee meetings and any other sessions required to track progress on strategic initiatives including assisting with secretarial functions and admin functions for the steering committee.

Product management 

Monitoring:

• Monitor BCM Strategy and provide regular updates to the BCM committee on the BCM audits, training, simulations awareness programmes communications disaster recovery testing and emerging BCM trends
• Regularly update the SM and Leadership within the portfolio on the status updates on the AGSA BCM strategy
• Monitor that each action/task implemented within the portfolio yields the desired outcome as envisaged, aligned with senior management and executives’ expectations.

Reporting:

• Co-ordinate, tracks and reviews BCM reports including organisational monthly, quarterly and annual reports and provides input into the relevant reporting.
• Ensures that all products/services including reports/messages adhere to the relevant quality standards as agreed with the SM.
• Functions as first line of review for all BCM related proposals and requests for approvals presented to the office of the CFO.

Project management:

• Provides a project coordination for function strategic projects including BCM allocated deliverables in the office of the CFO and monitors progress and performance supporting the SM to ensure timely delivery of key outcomes.
• Acts as the initial reviewer for proposals and approval requests submitted to the SM, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities and completeness before escalation.
• Pro-actively considers and drafts responses to correspondence, preparations of memorandums and submissions, in consultation with the SM.
• Be able to alert the SM when deadlines will not be met on strategic projects and reports, proactively identify bottlenecks and provide solutions.
• Prepares the CFO for meetings by reviewing and analysing briefing materials and engaging with relevant stakeholders to gather and validate supporting information.
• Preparing SM for meetings - reviewing and analysing packs, engaging with relevant participants to source information.
• Compile a variety of ad hoc written documents e.g. summaries, workshop reports, meetings etc.

Stakeholder Management

• Collaborate with organisation at large and other stakeholders supporting the SM to building and maintain healthy relationships with all internal and external stakeholders.
• Coordinate meetings with all stakeholders to monitor and report on performance progress of projects and programs.
• Maintain clear communication with all stakeholders throughout Business continuity Management.
• Respond to queries received by the BCM team and formulate an appropriate response, in order to maintain positive relations with both internal and external stakeholders.
• Be able to alert the SM when deadlines will not be met and proactively identify bottlenecks and provide solutions.
• Interact with and establish partnerships with BCI, professional bodies and other related BCM institutions 

Financial management and operational management

• Collaborate with the Business Unit Administration Managers (BUAMs) and other stakeholders in the financial planning process for all BCM related expenditure.
• Monitoring of the expenditure against the budget to ensure that spending occurs within the budgetary restrictions.
• Ensure that overspending is approved in accordance with procedures in advance. Communicate where overspending took place and take corrective actions to rectify the overspending
• Monitor expenses on a monthly basis:
• Monthly expenditure
• Variance in terms of budgeted and actual figures
• Savings achieved or budget overspent
• Year to date figures
• Report any potential risks on the budget to SM and propose revisions to the budget, if necessary, in response to significant or unforeseen developments

Other responsibilities 

• Perform and/or manage other projects, tasks and assignments not stipulated on the Job description as and when required.

Minimum requirements

Honours Degrees in one of the following fields is preferred:

• Informatics and Risk management 
• Information Technology
• Information Systems
• Disaster Management
• Crisis Management
• Postgraduate Diplomas in Risk or Crisis or Project Management can be advantageous.

Certification in one of the following is preferred:

• Certificate of the Business Continuity Institute - CBCI 7.0 
• Certified Business Continuity Management Professional (CBCMP)
• ISO 22301 Lead Implementer or Auditor Certification

Experience    

• All experience should be provable. 
• 3–5 years in risk management, IT continuity, or emergency planning roles
• Experience with BCM software tools and frameworks can be advantageous