SmartSuite for the Physical Security Director
The Physical Security Director oversees facility security, access control, guard operations, incident response and safety programs across locations. They track security incidents and checks, manage guard and security vendors and report physical security risk to leadership.
What you own
The Physical Security Director oversees facility security, access control, guard operations, incident response and safety programs across locations.
- Set physical security strategy, standards and policies
- Oversee access control, guard operations and control room monitoring
- Manage security incident response and investigations
- Run inspections and security compliance checks across locations
- Manage guard and security technology vendors
- Report physical security incidents and risk to leadership
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
Incidents. Registers physical security incidents with severity, response tasks and investigation records.
Inspections. Tracks inspections and safety compliance checks across locations with evidence.
Vendors. Manages guard vendor activities, performance and contracts.
Reporting. Reports incident trends, inspection completion and open actions to leadership.
Products this role uses most
Industry reference
ASIS International's Physical Asset Protection standard (ASIS PAP-2021) and ISO 22361:2022 on crisis management frame the role, and the Interagency Security Committee's Risk Management Process for Federal Facilities sets the protection levels for civilian federal buildings.
Sector rules decide what the director must evidence: HIPAA's facility access controls (45 CFR 164.310(a)) in healthcare, PCI DSS v4.0.1 Requirement 9 on restricting physical access to cardholder data, the Physical and Environmental Protection control family of NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 for federal systems and FedRAMP authorizations, and the FFIEC's physical-security expectations for banks. Each asks for the same records: who had access, which inspections ran and what was found.
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 Physical Security Director accountable for?
The Physical Security Director oversees facility security, access control, guard operations, incident response and safety programs across locations. They set physical security strategy, standards and policies, oversee access control, guard operations and control room monitoring, manage incident response and investigations, run inspections and security compliance checks across sites, manage guard and security technology vendors and report physical security incidents and risk to leadership. The work spans every location, which is why the record has to be consistent across them.
How does SmartSuite help a Physical Security Director track incidents across sites?
Physical Security registers physical security incidents with severity, response tasks and investigation records, so an incident at any location is logged with the same severity scale, the response tasks assigned to the people on site and the investigation documented against it. Incident Management holds the wider incident record and Crisis Management covers escalation when an incident becomes one, with the Crisis Management Lead working from the same record rather than a separate call tree.
How are inspections and compliance checks tracked across locations?
Inspections and safety compliance checks are tracked across locations with evidence, so each site's inspections are scheduled, completed and evidenced in the same way, and the director can see which locations are overdue or failed. Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) holds the safety side, and the EHS Manager and Facilities Director see the same checks. That consistent evidence is what FFIEC physical security expectations, HIPAA facility access controls and PCI DSS Requirement 9 assessors ask for.
How are guard and security vendors managed in SmartSuite?
Vendor & Supplier Management manages guard vendor activities, performance and contracts, so each guard and security technology vendor has its contract, the activities it is responsible for and its performance record in one place. The Third-Party Risk Manager sees the same vendor record from the risk side, and the director can show whether a vendor is meeting its obligations across the sites it covers before a renewal rather than from recollection.
How does this role report physical security risk to leadership?
SmartSuite reports incident trends, inspection completion and open actions to leadership from the incident, inspection and vendor records as they stand. The Physical Security Director can show the Chief Operating Officer or Chief Risk Officer which locations generate incidents, how inspection completion is tracking and what corrective actions remain open, with the HR Operations Manager seeing what concerns people and workplace matters. The report is read from the record, not reassembled from site reports.
How quickly can a security team get started across multiple locations?
New customers can start with SmartSuite Onboarding, a guided four-week program around one or two priority workflows. For a security team the first workflow is the incident record: load the locations with their inspection schedules, agree the incident severity scale every site will use and load the guard and security vendors with their contracts. Sites begin logging incidents and completing inspections in the same record, and open investigations and actions are loaded so the first leadership report reflects what is actually outstanding.
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