Senior Manager, Business Continuity

About Kirkland & Ellis

At Kirkland & Ellis, we are united in our ambition and drive to move forward. We share core values that help us achieve excellence: collaboration, talent empowerment, service, inclusion, respect and gratitude. Our people are our greatest asset, and we invest in the brightest talent and encourage a diversity of perspectives and strengths to create dynamic teams that operate at the pinnacle of their field. Our talented professionals show up every day knowing they will engage in meaningful work, continuous learning and professional development.
 
As one of the world’s leading law firms, we serve a broad range of clients with market-leading practices in private equity, M&A and other complex corporate transactions; investment fund formation and management; restructurings; high-stakes litigation and trials; and government, regulatory and internal investigations. We handle the most complicated and sophisticated legal matters because we don’t just meet industry standards, we create them. We bring innovation and entrepreneurialism to every engagement and, as a result, have long-standing client relationships with leading global corporations and financial sponsors. With 6,500 employees (including 3,500+ lawyers) operating from 19 offices across the United States, Europe and Asia, we are one of the largest law firms in the world and a top financial performer.

Essential Job Functions

The Business Continuity (BC) Senior Manager is responsible for the framework and methodology to manage all business continuity life cycle activities, including risk assessment, business impact analysis, strategy development, implementation, testing and review, plan maintenance, updates, training, and communications. The Senior Manager will lead and support the development and management of a comprehensive business continuity program to enable the Firm to manage a crisis event as well as meet compliance requirements for BC planning.

Essential Functions:

• Management and delivery of the program that addresses business recovery and emergency response management.
• Work with crisis management and staff leads to align the Firms’ emergency management plan with established best practices and community standards. Develop and maintain business recovery plans and procedures; reviews, revises, and expands existing plans and protocols.
• Lead and facilitate execution of the plan and support plan navigation for the business at the time of an event which includes supporting the crisis management lead with critical components of the plan in order that they can make critical decisions, provide visibility and reporting to the crisis management lead/team on the critical functions, individuals, and infrastructure within the business plans.
• Conduct risk assessments for various departments and functions, analyzing potential business impact of unpredictable business interruptions such as natural disasters, security breach, and other disruptions.
• Collaborate with IT staff to develop and implement best practices to protect and restore data and systems in the event of natural disasters, viruses, and hackers.
• Identify and implement recovery operations and methods to allow the company to function at limited or partial capacity if services or infrastructure is degraded or down.
• Create and facilitate practice drills for plan execution.
• Develop and/or lead change management efforts across all phases of projects and initiatives to drive the Firm’s culture of continuous improvement
• Develop and provide staff training on Business Continuity risk management and disaster recovery.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Qualifications & Requirements

Education, Work Experience, Skills

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Finance, or similar field required; master’s degree preferred.
• Minimum of eight years of hands-on business continuity experience with at least five years managing the program and team is required.
• Experience in performing BC audits or in managing and coordinating the response to a major, unplanned disruptive event that required activation of the BC/DR/Incident or Crisis Management Plans is required.
• Experience in Business Resumption Planning, Crisis Management Planning, Incident Response Planning, Disaster Recovery Planning, Plan Exercising/Testing, Conducting BIAs is required.
• Ability to interact with a variety of internal and external people in a professional manner that creates confidence in his/her knowledge and abilities and helps foster mutually satisfactory resolution to control gaps and issues.
• Demonstrate the ability to think strategically and drive tactical execution.
• Excellent strategic, problem solving, and analytical skills.
• Proven change management skills.
• Excellent communication skills; presentation, verbal and written.
• Ability to collaborate with others to develop an emergency plan.
• Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite or related software.
• Hands-on experience implementing business continuity management software is a plus.
• Strong knowledge of technology and business concepts, life cycles and processes.
• Self-starter with the ability to both work with a degree of autonomy and at the direction of leadership.

Certificates, Licensures, Registrations

• Relevant Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Risk or Audit certifications preferred.

How to Apply

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Equal Employment Opportunity

All employment decisions, including the recruiting, hiring, placement, training availability, promotion, compensation, evaluation, disciplinary actions, and termination of employment (if necessary) are made without regard to the employee’s race, color, creed, religion, sex, pregnancy or childbirth, personal appearance, family responsibilities, sexual orientation or preference, gender identity, political affiliation, source of income, place of residence, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military veteran status, unfavorable discharge from military service, physical or mental disability, or on any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

Closing Statement

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