Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Continuity Manager

🎯 Role Definition

The Business Continuity Manager leads the design, implementation and ongoing management of the organization's business continuity and disaster recovery framework. This role owns business impact analyses (BIA), recovery time objectives (RTO) / recovery point objectives (RPO), plan development, testing and continuous improvement efforts to ensure operational resilience across people, process and technology. The Manager partners closely with IT, risk, legal, facilities, HR and external vendors to prepare for, respond to and recover from incidents that could interrupt critical business capabilities.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Risk Analyst with exposure to operational risk and continuity planning
IT Disaster Recovery Specialist or Infrastructure Resilience Lead
Emergency Management Officer or Crisis Response Coordinator

Advancement To:

Head of Business Resilience / Director of Business Continuity
Director of Operational Resilience / Senior Risk Director
Chief Risk Officer (CRO) or Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) with resilience remit

Lateral Moves:

Crisis Management Lead / Incident Response Manager
Vendor Resilience & Third-Party Risk Manager
Information Security Manager with continuity responsibilities

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead and maintain the enterprise Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) including policy, standards, governance, lifecycle processes and roadmaps aligned to ISO 22301 and relevant regulatory requirements; ensure documentation is current and accessible to stakeholders.
Develop, update and maintain comprehensive business continuity, disaster recovery and crisis management plans for all critical business units, applications and third-party services, ensuring alignment with enterprise risk appetite and recovery objectives.
Conduct and manage organization-wide Business Impact Analyses (BIAs) to identify critical functions, dependencies, single points of failure and to define prioritized recovery time objectives (RTOs), recovery point objectives (RPOs) and minimum operating requirements.
Design and own annual testing strategies including tabletop exercises, simulation tests, full failover exercises and post-test after-action reviews; coordinate cross-functional participation and drive remediation of gaps with clear owners and timelines.
Lead incident response coordination for operational disruptions and major incidents, acting as the continuity lead during crises to organize escalation, recovery, communications and executive briefings until restoration to normal operations.
Establish and monitor continuity KPIs and metrics (e.g., plan completion, test pass rate, recovery readiness) and produce executive-level dashboards and monthly/quarterly reports to demonstrate readiness and trending to senior leadership and the board.
Manage relationships with internal stakeholders (IT, Legal, HR, Facilities, Security, Line of Business) to embed continuity requirements into change control, program onboarding, vendor assessments and major projects.
Integrate IT disaster recovery plans with business continuity requirements, ensuring infrastructure, cloud, application and data recovery strategies support defined RTOs/RPOs and that failover/runbook procedures are validated.
Oversee third-party and vendor resilience assessments, contract clauses, continuity validation, and contingency planning; coordinate vendor recovery testing and remedial actions for outsourced critical services.
Create, deliver and update continuity training and awareness programs for employees and leadership, including role-based crisis response playbooks and communications protocols for rapid mobilization.
Develop escalation matrices, crisis communications templates and stakeholder contact directories to ensure rapid, consistent communication to employees, customers, regulators and the media during incidents.
Conduct supplier and dependency mapping to identify concentration risk and implement mitigation strategies such as alternate suppliers, segmentation, or expanded SLAs and contingency arrangements.
Coordinate physical site resilience planning, including alternate workplace options, facilities recovery, asset relocation plans and continuity of essential utilities to support business-critical operations.
Maintain compliance with regulatory and audit requirements related to business continuity and disaster recovery, prepare audit artifacts and lead internal and external continuity audits and assessments.
Lead risk assessments for continuity-specific threats (natural disasters, cyber incidents, pandemics, supply chain interruptions) and translate risk findings into practical resilience controls and prioritized remediation.
Oversee budget, procurement and deployment of continuity tools, automated runbook platforms, backup and replication technologies and communication systems used in incident escalation and mass notification.
Serve as the primary point of contact for crisis management exercises with regulators, auditors and key customers; coordinate evidentiary materials and demonstrate continuity readiness and testing outcomes.
Facilitate continuous improvement by capturing lessons learned from incidents and test outcomes, updating policies and playbooks, and executing follow-up remediation plans tracked to closure.
Collaborate with Information Security, IT Service Management and Change Management teams to embed continuity checkpoints into release pipelines, infrastructure changes and major transformation programs to prevent degradation of recovery posture.
Provide subject matter expertise and support for mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and business transformation initiatives to ensure continuity risks are identified and mitigated during organizational change.

Secondary Functions

Maintain and update the continuity contact database, emergency notification trees and alternate workforce matrices to ensure accurate, up-to-date response capability.
Support development and review of contractual resilience clauses for vendor agreements and ensure continuity obligations are tracked and enforced.
Provide training and mentoring to junior continuity analysts and cross-functional leads to deepen internal resilience capabilities and succession readiness.
Assist in preparing continuity-related disclosures, regulatory filings and executive communications during scheduled reviews or post-incident briefings.
Participate in industry forums, benchmarking groups and regulatory workshops to adopt best practices and incorporate emerging resilience standards into the BC program.
Coordinate periodic tabletop exercises with Legal and Communications teams to validate regulatory reporting, customer notification and public statements during simulated incidents.
Support ad-hoc resilience projects such as office consolidation, workplace strategy changes, and technology migrations by reviewing continuity impact and recommending mitigations.
Collaborate with insurance and claims teams during loss events to document business interruption impacts and validate policy coverage related to continuity incidents.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Business continuity program management and BCMS implementation (ISO 22301 familiarity and practical implementation experience).
Conducting Business Impact Analysis (BIA), risk assessments, dependency mapping and defining RTO/RPO requirements.
Disaster recovery planning for IT systems: backup and restore processes, failover/failback procedures, replication strategies and cloud continuity controls.
Crisis management and incident response coordination, including escalation protocols, command center operations and post-incident reviews.
Designing and executing tabletop, simulation and full-scale recovery tests with documented scenarios and measurable outcomes.
Vendor resilience assessment and third-party continuity due diligence, including contractual resilience clauses and remediation tracking.
Familiarity with continuity tools and platforms (BCM software, mass notification systems, runbook automation platforms, backup/replication technologies).
Regulatory and audit compliance for continuity frameworks; preparing evidence and remediation for internal and external audits.
Data-driven reporting and dashboarding of continuity KPIs; ability to synthesize test results and risk metrics for executive decision-making.
Project management skills for leading multi-stakeholder remediation projects and integration of continuity requirements into enterprise change programs.
Knowledge of information security concepts (incident response, business impact of cyber events) and ability to coordinate cross-discipline responses.

Soft Skills

Strong leadership and executive presence: comfortable briefing C-suite and board-level stakeholders during high-pressure incidents.
Excellent verbal and written communication: able to craft clear crisis communications, executive summaries and technical runbooks.
Stakeholder management and influencing: proven ability to coordinate and gain commitment from IT, operations, vendors and business leaders.
Analytical and systems thinking: skilled at mapping complex dependencies and translating technical recovery details into business impact terms.
Decision-making under pressure: calm, decisive and pragmatic during outages and crisis response.
Facilitation and training: skilled workshop leader for BIAs, tabletop exercises and continuity awareness sessions.
Problem solving and continuous improvement mindset: identifies root causes and drives remediation through closure.
Attention to detail with strong documentation and process orientation.
Collaboration and diplomacy when balancing competing priorities across cross-functional teams.
Adaptability and resilience: able to manage ambiguity and changing incident scenarios with a flexible approach.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

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

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Business Continuity, Risk Management, Information Security, Emergency Management or MBA preferred.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Business Continuity Management
Risk Management and Insurance
Information Technology / Computer Science
Emergency Management / Disaster Recovery
Business Administration / Operations Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 5–10+ years of progressive experience in business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis management or related risk disciplines.

Preferred:

7+ years leading enterprise-wide continuity programs with demonstrable success in plan development, testing and remediation.
Experience implementing or managing a BCMS aligned to ISO 22301, or experience with other regulated industry continuity frameworks.
Proven track record running cross-functional tabletop and full-scale recovery exercises and reporting outcomes to senior leadership.

Certifications (highly desirable): CBCP (Certified Business Continuity Professional), MBCI (Member of the Business Continuity Institute), ISO 22301 Lead Implementer, PMP, CISSP or relevant IT/incident response certifications.