Job Title: Senior Business Continuity Specialist (Contract-to-Hire)
Location: Hybrid - Charlotte, Columbus, Akron, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Indianapolis, Dayton, or Cincinnati
Contract Length: 6 month contract to hire
Work Type: Hybrid 2-3 days a week
About the Role:
We are seeking a Senior Business Continuity Specialist to join the Enterprise Resilience team of a large, well-established financial institution. This is a contract-to-hire opportunity designed to convert into a full-time position. The selected candidate will help enhance and maintain business continuity and disaster recovery programs across the enterprise, ensuring the organization's readiness and resilience against potential disruptions.
This role will involve both strategy and execution—working closely with business and technology teams to assess, revise, and improve recovery plans and processes. You'll help ensure business continuity plans are realistic, detailed, and actionable, and you'll play a key part in supporting large-scale exercises and regulatory compliance efforts.
What We're Looking For:
This team values professionalism, clarity, and integrity. The ideal candidate knows what “good” looks like in a continuity plan and can make a well-reasoned case for improvements without being overbearing. They should be able to think critically, communicate effectively, and step into complex situations with confidence and tact. This is not a passive role—it requires a hands-on approach to building organizational resilience.
Key Responsibilities:
- Develop and support business continuity and disaster recovery plans that align with FFIEC guidelines and enterprise standards.
- Review and assess existing business continuity documentation for completeness, clarity, and compliance—helping identify gaps and improve quality.
- Collaborate with business units and IT teams to gather inputs, build recovery strategies, and validate readiness.
- Support execution of annual testing exercises, including large, unannounced simulations across multiple regional locations.
- Assist with tracking and documenting test results, plan revisions, and compliance metrics (KPIs and KRIs).
- Participate in business impact analyses and risk assessments to prioritize recovery objectives.
- Partner with information security and first line of defense teams on identifying and remediating resilience risks.
- Help deliver internal training content related to business continuity and enterprise resilience.
- Contribute to customer audit responses, documentation maintenance, and compliance reviews.
- Provide support during crisis situations, including potential on-site presence during test events or real incidents.
Top Required Skills & Experience:
- Minimum 5 years of experience in business continuity, disaster recovery, and enterprise resilience.
- Strong understanding of business resumption technologies, standards, and regulatory expectations (e.g., FFIEC).
- Ability to evaluate and improve business continuity documentation with attention to realistic recovery strategies and SMART objectives.
- Excellent collaboration and interpersonal skills; capable of working across departments and influencing without authority.
- Professional maturity, humility, and the ability to handle high-stress situations or pushback from stakeholders with diplomacy.
- Experience managing or supporting on-call rotations or high-impact incident responses.
Nice to Have:
- Familiarity with the ServiceNow Business Continuity module or similar BC/DR platforms.
- Experience in Agile environments or project delivery.
- Certification such as CBCP (Certified Business Continuity Professional) or MBCI.
- Experience creating or delivering online training content related to continuity/resilience.
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience