Program Manager – Business Continuity Planning & Disaster Recovery

Gibson Dunn is a leading global law firm, advising clients on significant transactions and disputes. Our exceptional teams craft and deploy creative legal strategies that are meticulously tailored to every matter, however complex or high-stakes.

The firm’s work is distinguished by a unique combination of precision and vision.

Based in any of our US offices, the Program Manager, Business Continuity Planning & Disaster Recovery (BCP / DR) will play a pivotal role in ensuring the resilience and continuity of our organization’s operations in the face of adverse events or disasters.

You will be responsible for leading and managing projects related to Business Continuity Planning, disaster recovery strategy, and crisis management.

This role demands a strong blend of program and project management skills, technical knowledge of IT systems, specifically flexible, agile cloud-based solutions, and the ability to coordinate cross-functional teams effectively.

This role reports to the Chief Information Officer.

Responsibilities include :

• Design and implement robust disaster recovery solutions to minimize downtime and data loss in the event of a disaster or system failure.
• Develop and maintain a comprehensive Business Continuity Planning program aligned with organizational goals and industry best practices.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across departments to identify critical business functions, potential risks, and mitigation strategies.
• Conduct business impact analyses to prioritize recovery efforts and resource allocation.
• Define recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for various systems and applications.
• Establish procedures for data backup, replication, failover, and restoration, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements including consideration of regional compliance regulations.
• Lead BCP / DR projects from initiation to closure, including planning, execution, monitoring, and reporting.
• Define project scope, objectives, deliverables, and timelines in coordination with stakeholders.
• Track project progress, identify risks and issues, and implement corrective actions to ensure project success.
• Develop and maintain crisis management plans to respond effectively to emergencies, including infrastructure failures, natural disasters, cyberattacks, and other disruptions.
• Coordinate crisis response activities, such as incident assessment, communication with stakeholders, and activation of recovery procedures.
• Conduct post-incident reviews to identify lessons learned and improve future response capabilities.
• Communicate BCP / DR plans, procedures, and status updates to senior management, department heads, and other key stakeholders.
• Facilitate training and awareness programs to ensure all employees understand their roles and responsibilities in a crisis.
• Demonstrate commitment to excellence in customer support and secure customer cooperation under pressure conditions.
• Support other IS projects and initiatives as needed.
• Provide supporting documentation, reports, and other information to management.
• Adhere to all firm policies and processes.

Qualifications

• Excellent leadership, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple priorities simultaneously.

Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field.
• Minimum of 8 years of experience in program management, with a focus on business continuity, cloud environments, disaster recovery, and related areas.
• Working experience within IT infrastructure, systems architecture, and cloud technologies including Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, IBM, and Oracle.
• Knowledge of relevant regulatory requirements and industry standards.
• Must have prior experience developing and supporting a contemporary, highly resilient, BCP / DR replicated environments mirroring core platforms including, but not limited to, M365 (Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, OneNote), Intune, Proofpoint, iManage 10 cloud, SPM, Intapp Walls, Druva, Azure services (IaaS, PaaS), Google Workspace, financial systems, and additional legal technology platforms.
• Prior experience in industries with stringent compliance requirements, such as finance, healthcare, legal or government.
30+ days ago