Lead Testing, Simulation, and Training

Onsite in NYC

Summary

The Vice President, Testing, Simulation & Training leads the strategy, design, and execution of the bank's operational resilience testing, simulation, and training program. This role ensures the bank's readiness to respond to severe but plausible disruptive events including wide-area power outages, cyber-attacks, infrastructure failures, third-party disruptions, geopolitical unrest, and climate-related crises. It also includes oversight of annual recovery strategy testing, executive and staff training, notification exercises, and third-party validation testing.

The role ensures alignment with global regulatory requirements, including the FFIEC, DORA, OCC, and PRA expectations. Success in this role will be measured by the ability to drive outcomes-based testing, validate that critical business services can remain within impact tolerances, and foster a culture of proactive resilience and continuous learning.

Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership
o Develop and own the strategy for testing, simulation, and training, ensuring alignment with the bank's operational resilience framework and key business services.
o Collaborate with business and resilience leads to align testing to critical business services and validate their ability to operate within defined impact tolerance thresholds.
o Serve as a senior advisor on emerging risk scenarios and evolving regulatory expectations.
o Translate regulatory expectations (e.g., FFIEC, DORA, PRA, OCC) into actionable, risk-informed testing strategies.
o Promote cultural readiness by increasing business and executive ownership of resilience through immersive exercises.
Testing, Simulation & Training
o Lead the planning and execution of severe-but-plausible scenario simulations including:
Wide-area power and infrastructure failures
Cyber events (e.g., ransomware, Active Directory compromise)
Third-party outages and supply chain disruptions
Geopolitical incidents and climate-related events
o Manage:
Annual recovery strategy testing for critical business services
Notification and alerting exercises, including communication and escalation protocol validation
Critical third-party service provider testing to assess vendor readiness and integration with internal response
o Design cross-functional and interdependency testing between business, IT, and third-party services.
o Validate crisis governance structures (e.g., command centers, executive decision making and authority).
o Lead post-exercise debriefs and after-action reviews. Document lessons learned, track remediation actions, and ensure corrective actions are implemented.
o Develop and lead role-based training, leadership simulations, and awareness programs across executives, plan owners, and incident responders.
Process and Technology Optimization
o Integrate tools and automation to improve test planning, execution, and insights.
o Build consistent processes for scenario development, data capture, reporting, and continuous improvement.
o Partner with change management, operational risk, and third-party risk functions to ensure test results inform resilience planning and governance processes.
Regulatory Compliance and Audit Readiness
o Ensure full compliance with FFIEC, DORA, PRA, OCC
o Lead regulatory and internal/external audit preparation, ensuring testing and simulation capabilities are evidenced through documentation, after-action reviews, and remediation activities.
o Act as point of contact for internal audit and regulatory exams related to resilience testing and training.
Team Leadership and Development
o Lead and mentor a high-performing team responsible for scenario planning, testing execution, training delivery, metrics reporting, driving a culture of excellence, continuous learning, and cross-functional collaboration.
o Develop training programs for executive stakeholders, including annual crisis simulations, tabletop exercises, and notification response testing.
o Support team growth, succession planning, and skills development to future-proof the bank's resilience capabilities.
Core Competencies
Strategic Vision & Planning
o Ability to define and lead a best-in-class testing and training program aligned with regulatory and enterprise risk priorities.
o Ability to work at both a strategic and tactical level, focusing on the broader picture while driving execution.
Crisis & Scenario Thinking
o Ability to simulate highly disruptive events and test real-world recovery capabilities.
o Ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously, determine prioritization, and work under minimal supervision.
Outcome-Focused Mindset
o Strong understanding of how to link testing outputs to business service continuity, impact tolerances, and internal client outcomes.
Training & Facilitation
o Skilled in developing and delivering training and simulations tailored to different stakeholder groups.
Regulatory Acumen
o Deep familiarity with regulatory requirements for operational resilience testing.
Continuous Improvement
o Embeds lessons learned, metrics, and feedback loops into the resilience lifecycle.
Soft Skills & Leadership
o Strong leadership and project management skills.
o Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical teams.
o Analytical mindset with a proactive approach to problem-solving and risk mitigation.
o Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment with competing priorities
o Comfortable working in a highly global, diverse, and hybrid (office and virtual) work environment
o Strong communication and documentation skills.