SmartSuite for the Head of Operational Resilience
The Head of Operational Resilience leads the enterprise resilience program: business impact analyses, important business service mapping, impact tolerances, continuity plans, testing and crisis management. They ensure every business unit maintains, tests and improves its plans.
What you own
The Head of Operational Resilience leads the enterprise resilience program: business impact analyses, important business service mapping, impact tolerances, continuity plans, testing and crisis management.
- Own the resilience framework, policy and program plan
- Identify important business services and set impact tolerances
- Coordinate business impact analyses with stakeholders
- Approve continuity and recovery plans across departments
- Manage the testing and exercising schedule and drive corrective actions
- Oversee crisis management escalation and communication
- Report readiness, RTOs and maturity to executives and the board
At a glance
The GRC processes this role owns, touches and depends on.
Owns
accountable for the process
Touches
contributes or approves
Depends on
consumes its output
How the GRC processes connect
Three lines of defense set the frame; the chain shows where each process hands off to the next. Colors follow the role: navy is owned, blue is touched, gray is depended on.
Reporting lines
Who this role reports to, who reports to them, and the peers they work with most.
Reports to
Direct reports
Works closely with
How SmartSuite supports this role
Lead
Operational resilience. Structures BIAs, service mapping, continuity plans and exercise logs in one workspace so the program runs on a schedule with automated reminders.
Risk management. Links important business services and their tolerances to the risks and controls that protect them.
Third-party risk. Maps critical vendors to the services that depend on them so concentration risk is visible.
Issues and actions. Captures corrective actions from tests and incidents and tracks them to closure.
Reporting. Visualizes organizational RTOs, readiness levels and maturity for executive and board reporting.
Products this role uses most
Industry reference
ISO 22301:2019 provides the management system; the UK PRA's SS1/21 and FCA rules (fully in force March 2025) define the regulatory model of important business services, impact tolerances and scenario testing; the EU's DORA (from January 2025) applies it to ICT risk across financial entities; the Basel Committee's Principles for Operational Resilience (2021) set the international baseline.
Other sectors have their own anchors: CMS emergency preparedness rules (42 CFR 482.15) for healthcare providers, FEMA's continuity directives and NIST SP 800-34 for public bodies, and NIS2 and SOC 2 availability commitments for technology providers. The BCI Good Practice Guidelines cover the practice.
Related roles
Explore Further
Guides and definitions from the GRC Knowledge Center and the What-is glossary, chosen for this role.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Head of Operational Resilience accountable for?
The Head of Operational Resilience owns the resilience framework, policy and program plan, and is accountable for the whole cycle behind it: identifying important business services, setting impact tolerances, coordinating business impact analyses, approving continuity and recovery plans across departments, running the testing and exercising schedule and overseeing crisis escalation. They report readiness, recovery time objectives and maturity to executives and the board, so every business unit has to maintain, test and improve its plans.
How does SmartSuite help a Head of Operational Resilience run the program?
SmartSuite structures BIAs, service mapping, continuity plans and exercise logs in one workspace, so the program runs on a schedule with automated reminders rather than on chased spreadsheets. Operational Resilience holds the important business services and their impact tolerances, Business Impact Analysis (BIA) captures the analyses behind them, and Crisis Management covers escalation and communication when a disruption is live. Each plan sits beside the service it protects, which makes approvals and refresh dates visible.
How are important business services linked to the risks that protect them?
Each important business service and its tolerance is linked to the risks and controls that protect it, so the resilience view and the risk register describe the same thing. When a control weakens or a risk score rises, the service it supports shows the exposure, and the Operational Risk Manager and the resilience team are looking at one record rather than reconciling two. Critical vendors are mapped to the services that depend on them, which makes concentration risk visible as well.
What happens to corrective actions after a test or an incident?
Corrective actions from tests and incidents are captured in Issues Management and tracked to closure, with an owner and a due date on every item. Exercise findings do not disappear into a report; they become actions the Business Continuity Manager and Resilience Testing Lead can see, chase and close, with evidence attached. Incident Management records the incidents themselves, so the lessons from a real disruption and from a planned exercise land in the same action list.
How does this role report readiness and maturity to the board?
SmartSuite dashboards show readiness metrics, testing completion, incident trends, outstanding actions and continuity maturity for executive and board reporting, drawn from the live plans, tests and actions rather than from a quarterly compilation. The Head of Operational Resilience can show the Chief Risk Officer and Chief Operating Officer which services sit within tolerance, which plans are overdue for testing and where corrective actions remain open, then take the same view to the board with the detail one click behind it.
How quickly can a resilience team get started with SmartSuite?
New customers can start with SmartSuite Onboarding, a guided four-week program around one or two priority workflows. For a resilience team the first workflow is the program record: load the list of important business services, their impact tolerances and the current plans, then set the testing schedule so reminders begin. The IT Disaster Recovery Lead, Third-Party Risk Manager and Facilities Director work in the same workspace, so their plans and dependencies attach to the services they support.
How does SmartSuite fit the regulatory model of important business services?
The regulatory model that the UK PRA's SS1/21, the FCA rules and DORA share, of important business services, impact tolerances and scenario testing, is the structure SmartSuite uses: services are identified, tolerances set against them, and tests logged with the corrective actions that follow. ISO 22301 supplies the management system that the program plan and review cycle follow. Organizations outside financial services apply the same structure to the anchors their sector sets, such as healthcare emergency preparedness rules or NIST SP 800-34.
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