Business Resilience Manager (12-month FTC)

Role Summary and Department Overview:

The Group COO Office is responsible for driving strategic execution, business change, governance enhancement and firm-wide operational effectiveness across Peel Hunt. The team works closely with senior leadership to deliver key strategic initiatives, strengthen the firm's operating model and support sustainable growth.

Peel Hunt has established its Business Resilience framework and is now entering the next phase of rollout, embedding and operationalisation. The Business Resilience Manager will provide dedicated delivery leadership to implement the framework across Critical and Important Business Services, embed resilience ownership across the firm and establish a sustainable business-as-usual operating model.

The role combines programme delivery, stakeholder engagement and practical resilience expertise, and will play a key role in embedding Business Resilience into the firm's day-to-day operations. The successful candidate will work extensively with Service Owners, Process Owners, the COO function, Technology, Compliance, Procurement, Internal Audit and senior governance forums to drive delivery, challenge progress and maintain accountability.

The role is expected to combine practical project delivery with hands-on resilience expertise, strong stakeholder management and the ability to translate resilience requirements into sustainable operational practices.

This role is likely to suit an experienced Operational Resilience Manager, Business Resilience Manager or Business Continuity professional who enjoys practical delivery, stakeholder engagement and embedding sustainable operating practices. The successful candidate will be comfortable operating across business, operations, technology and control functions and driving complex initiatives.

Role Responsibilities:

• Own and coordinate the details delivery plan for the Business Resilience programme, maintaining milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions, actions and clear management reporting.

• Lead the planned rollout across the Group’s Critical and Important Business Services, applying a consistent methodology and proportionate quality standards.

• Facilitate service identification and assessment, impact and criticality assessment, service-level disruption tolerance setting, process and resource mapping, dependency analysis and process-level recovery objective setting.

• Work with Service Owners, Process Owners and departments to develop, challenge and maintain practical departmental playbooks covering responsibilities, key contacts, escalation routes, workarounds and recovery actions.

• Design, coordinate and document scenario tests covering end-to-end services and severe but plausible disruption scenarios; capture lessons learned, vulnerabilities and remediation actions and tracking these to closure.

• Coordinate completion and periodic refresh of the Business Resilience and Operational Resilience Self-Assessments, ensuring that conclusions are evidence-based and supported by current artefacts.

• Maintain and improve the Business Resilience Policy, Group Business Continuity Plan, Incident Response and Crisis Communication Plan, supporting standards, templates and guidance.

• Establish the BAU maintenance cycle for service assessments, mappings, tolerances, playbooks, scenario tests, lessons learned, training, policy reviews, self-assessments and governance reporting.

• Define ownership, review frequencies, evidence requirements, metrics, escalation triggers and governance responsibilities so that the framework remains current after project completion.

• Support selection, implementation and ongoing use of suitable technology to store, control and maintain resilience data and artefacts, reducing manual inconsistency and improving reporting.

• Develop and deliver role-based training and awareness for the Board, senior management, Service Owners, Process Owners, the Incident Response Team and wider staff population.

• Produce clear updates, dashboards and papers for the Business Resilience Steering Group, Executive Risk Committee, Executive Board, Group Risk Committee and other forums as required.

• Work with Procurement and relevant stakeholders to assess material third-party dependencies and integrate proportionate resilience expectations into service assessments and testing.

• Support live incident response where required, including activation of plans, coordination, information capture, lessons learned and follow-up remediation.

• Promote a practical and collaborative resilience culture while providing appropriate independent challenge and escalating material gaps, delays or resource constraints.

Key Capabilities and Knowledge:

• A minimum of 2 years working as a Client Onboarding/KYC Analyst in a similar environment.

• Strong knowledge of business resilience, operational resilience, business continuity and incident or crisis management concepts and how they fit together.

• Practical understanding of service identification, impact tolerances, process and dependency mapping, recovery objectives, playbooks, scenario testing, self-assessment and remediation tracking.

• Awareness of the UK financial services regulatory environment and relevant expectations for operational resilience, governance and third-party dependencies.

• Understanding of the respective roles of first line ownership, second line oversight and independent assurance.

• Highly organised, delivery-focused and able to manage multiple workstreams, stakeholders and deadlines with limited supervision.

• Able to apply sound judgement and challenge constructively while remaining pragmatic and proportionate.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain resilience concepts to non-specialists.

• Strong analytical skills and attention to evidence, consistency, document control and data quality.

• Confident using Microsoft 365 tools, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and SharePoint; Power BI or comparable reporting capability is desirable.

• Collaborative, credible and comfortable working across business, operations, technology, risk and control functions.

• Willing to be hands-on and to create, review and maintain detailed framework artefacts rather than operating solely at programme level.

• Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders, challenge constructively and drive accountability across multiple teams without direct reporting authority.

Role Competencies:

• Communication

• Programme Delivery

• Problem Solving

• Analytical Judgement

• Building and Maintaining Relationships

• Planning and Organisation

• Attention to Detail