Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Continuity Lead

🎯 Role Definition

The Business Continuity Lead owns the end-to-end Business Continuity Management Program (BCMP) for the enterprise. This role develops, maintains and tests Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) and Disaster Recovery (DR) playbooks, leads crisis response and recovery operations, coordinates cross-functional resilience activities, and partners with IT, Facilities, Legal, HR, Procurement and lines of business to reduce organizational outage risk and meet regulatory requirements. The role requires strong program leadership, practical exercise facilitation, vendor continuity oversight, and the ability to convert risk assessments into executable recovery strategies.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Business Continuity Manager
IT Disaster Recovery Manager
Risk Management / Resilience Analyst

Advancement To:

Head of Resilience / Director of Business Continuity
Director of Risk Management or Operational Resilience
VP of Enterprise Resilience / Chief Risk Officer (for larger organizations)

Lateral Moves:

Information Security / Incident Response Lead
Crisis & Emergency Management Director

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop, own and continuously improve the enterprise Business Continuity Management Program (BCMP), including governance, policies, standards, templates and program roadmaps aligned to industry frameworks such as ISO 22301 and ISO 27031.
Lead enterprise-wide Business Impact Analyses (BIA), defining critical business functions, Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs), dependencies and minimum viable recovery requirements for all major lines of business and supporting functions.
Create, maintain and test comprehensive Business Continuity Plans (BCPs), Disaster Recovery plans and operational playbooks for services, applications and critical facilities; ensure plans are actionable, current and distributed to responsible teams.
Design, plan and execute regular BC/DR exercises (tabletop, simulation, full-scale) and after-action reviews to validate recovery capabilities, train responders and drive remediation of gaps and findings.
Serve as Incident Commander or Crisis Manager during major incidents, coordinating cross-functional response, recovery activities, executive communications and external stakeholder engagement until normal operations are restored.
Lead the design and testing of IT Disaster Recovery strategies in partnership with Infrastructure, Cloud, Application and Security teams to ensure technical recovery meets business-imposed RTO/RPO targets.
Conduct third-party and vendor continuity assessments, contract reviews and resilience due diligence; work with Procurement and Vendor Management to ensure supplier recovery plans and SLAs support business continuity requirements.
Establish and track program KPIs, metrics and heatmaps (e.g., plan coverage, exercise pass rates, remediation closure times, vendor continuity ratings) and deliver monthly/quarterly executive reports and resilience dashboards.
Manage the BCMS lifecycle and documentation for compliance audits and regulatory requirements; coordinate internal and external audit responses for BCM and incident response controls.
Lead crisis communications planning and maintain escalation/contact matrices, emergency notification systems, war-rooms, and executive briefing templates to ensure timely, clear communications during disruptions.
Partner with Legal, Compliance and Risk teams to integrate business continuity requirements with regulatory obligations, insurance considerations, and enterprise risk management processes.
Maintain and update continuity contact lists, recovery team rosters, alternate work sites and remote work enablers; validate accessibility and readiness of recovery sites and cloud failover procedures.
Oversee program budget, tool selection and management for BCM platforms, exercise tooling, and recovery orchestration systems; evaluate and onboard continuity technology solutions.
Facilitate cross-functional recovery playbook development and runbooks (HR for workforce continuity, Facilities for site restoration, Finance for cash/insurance processes) to ensure end-to-end recovery sequencing.
Lead supplier continuity improvement initiatives and remediation plans with third parties to reduce single points of failure and improve contractual resilience guarantees.
Perform risk assessments and scenario planning (natural disasters, cyberattacks, pandemics, supply chain interruption) and convert findings into prioritized mitigation and resilience investments.
Coordinate regular tabletop exercises with senior leaders and Board-level scenario simulations to validate roles, decision-making authority, and crisis escalation protocols.
Drive continuous improvement by owning remediation tracking workflows, root cause analysis after incidents, and embedding lessons learned into policies, trainings and system designs.
Build, coach and mentor a cross-functional network of plan owners, recovery managers, and exercise facilitators across the organization to institutionalize resilience practices.
Serve as the subject matter expert for BCM/DR best practices, providing expert guidance to internal stakeholders on recovery strategies, failover sequencing, cloud failback, and restoration priorities.
Ensure secure storage and accessibility of continuity documentation, backups and recovery credentials, including coordination of protected repositories for critical records and runbooks.
Liaise with external responders and regulators during significant incidents, and coordinate with local emergency services, law enforcement and crisis support organizations when needed.
Prepare and present concise executive-level briefings, risk heat maps and investment cases to secure resources and sponsorship for resilience initiatives.
Maintain currency with industry standards, regulatory developments and emerging threats; update program and plans to reflect new risks (e.g., ransomware patterns, geopolitical disruption).

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and analytics to quantify downtime exposure, cost of disruption and mapping of critical dependencies.
Contribute to the organization's broader resilience strategy, including continuity improvements driven by digital transformation and cloud migration plans.
Collaborate with IT, Security, Facilities, HR, Legal and Procurement to translate business continuity requirements into technical, contractual and operational solutions.
Participate in sprint planning and cross-functional project governance to ensure continuity requirements are embedded in major initiatives and product lifecycles.
Deliver training programs and awareness campaigns to business owners and recovery teams; maintain a calendar of mandatory training and drills for continuity stakeholders.
Assist with development and testing of pandemic, mass-absence and workplace safety response plans in coordination with HR and Occupational Health teams.
Provide on-call support for incident escalations and contribute to after-action reports and remediation prioritization following service outages.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) development and lifecycle management
Disaster Recovery (DR) planning for on-premises and cloud environments; understanding of RTO/RPO design
Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and dependency mapping techniques
ISO 22301 and BCMS implementation knowledge; experience supporting audits and certification processes
Incident Management and Crisis Response (including acting as Incident Commander)
Third-party/vendor continuity assessments and supplier resilience management
Tabletop exercise design, execution and after-action reporting
DR orchestration tools and BCM platforms (e.g., Fusion Framework, Archer, MetricStream or equivalent)
Familiarity with IT recovery technologies (backup, replication, failover, recovery automation) and cloud DR patterns (multi-region failover)
Regulatory compliance and audit liaison for continuity-related standards
Risk assessment methodologies and scenario modeling (pandemic, cyber, supply chain)
Metrics, dashboards and executive reporting (e.g., program KPIs, risk heatmaps)
Contract review for continuity clauses, SLAs and business continuity obligations
Familiarity with incident communication platforms, mass notification systems and war-room operations
Experience with root cause analysis, corrective action tracking and remediation governance

Soft Skills

Strong stakeholder management and executive communication — able to influence senior leaders and translate technical detail into business impact
Excellent facilitation skills for tabletop exercises, cross-functional workshops and incident coordination
Decisive leadership under pressure with proven crisis management temperament
Project and program management skills — organized, deadline-driven and able to manage multiple parallel workstreams
Analytical problem-solving and structured thinking for risk prioritization and decisioning
Coaching and mentoring capability to upskill plan owners and recovery teams
Persuasive presentation skills for executive briefings and board-level scenario updates
Attention to detail and documentation discipline for audit-readiness and compliance
Adaptability to evolving threat landscapes and changing business priorities
Collaborative team-player mindset with experience working across IT, Operations, Legal and Business units

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Technology, Risk Management, Emergency Management, or related field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Business Continuity Management, Risk Management, Emergency Management, Information Systems, or MBA is preferred.
Professional certifications such as Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), Member of the Business Continuity Institute (MBCI), ISO 22301 Lead Implementer/Auditor, PMP or ITIL desirable.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Business Continuity / Emergency Management
Information Technology / Computer Science
Risk Management / Finance
Business Administration / Operations Management
Cybersecurity / Information Assurance

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 7 – 12 years of progressive experience in business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis management or resilience roles, with demonstrable program ownership.

Preferred:

8+ years with at least 3 years leading an enterprise-level BCM program.
Proven experience working in complex, regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, utilities, telecommunications or government).
Hands-on experience running full-scale exercises, IT failovers, supplier continuity assessments and incident command roles.
History of working with executive teams and delivering audit-ready documentation and certification support.