Head of Security Operations & Cyber Defense

The Head of Security Operations & Cyber Defense is responsible for leading the bank's enterprise cyber defense strategy, Security Operations Center (SOC), incident response, threat intelligence, threat hunting, and security monitoring capabilities. This role provides strategic leadership to strengthen the organization's cyber resilience, ensuring effective detection, response, containment, and recovery from cyber threats while maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements and industry best practices. The incumbent will drive continuous modernization of cyber defense technologies, operational excellence, and team capability development to protect the bank's critical information assets.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the bank's Security Operations and Cyber Defense strategy, establishing a resilient operating model aligned with business objectives, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices.
• Lead enterprise Security Operations Center (SOC) functions, ensuring effective security monitoring, threat detection, incident response, digital forensics, threat hunting, and crisis management across on-premise and cloud environments.
• Drive the modernization and optimization of cyber defense technologies, including SIEM, SOAR, EDR/XDR, NDR, threat intelligence platforms, and security automation to improve operational efficiency and reduce cyber risk.
• Oversee cyber threat intelligence, detection engineering, and proactive threat hunting initiatives to strengthen the organization's ability to identify, investigate, and respond to advanced cyber threats.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory and security standards, including BNM RMiT, PCI-DSS, ISO/IEC 27001, SWIFT CSP, and other applicable banking regulations while maintaining audit readiness and governance excellence.
• Establish and monitor cybersecurity operational metrics, KPIs, risk dashboards, and executive reporting, providing strategic insights to senior management, risk committees, and board-level stakeholders.
• Lead and develop high-performing cyber defense teams by providing leadership, mentoring, succession planning, technical capability development, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and operational excellence.
• Collaborate with technology, infrastructure, risk, compliance, business, and external partners to strengthen cyber resilience, manage security incidents, improve operational processes, and support enterprise cybersecurity transformation initiatives.

Key Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity, Information Security, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related discipline. A Master's degree or MBA is an added advantage.
• Minimum 10 years of progressive cybersecurity experience, including at least 5 years leading enterprise Security Operations Centers (SOC), Cyber Defense, or Incident Response teams within the banking or financial services industry.
• Strong technical expertise in enterprise cybersecurity technologies, including SIEM, SOAR, EDR/XDR, NDR, threat intelligence platforms, cloud security, security monitoring, and detection engineering.
• Proven experience leading cyber incident response, digital forensics, threat hunting, malware analysis, crisis management, and cyber resilience initiatives in complex enterprise environments.
• Strong knowledge of cybersecurity frameworks and regulatory standards, including BNM RMiT, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, MITRE ATT&CK, ISO/IEC 27001, PCI-DSS, SWIFT CSP, and other financial industry security requirements.
• Demonstrated experience in cybersecurity governance, operational risk management, audit readiness, third-party security oversight, and executive-level stakeholder engagement.
• Professional certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CCSP, CCISO, GCIA, GCIH, GCTI, GCFA, GREM, or equivalent cybersecurity certifications are highly desirable.
• Excellent leadership, strategic thinking, communication, stakeholder management, and decision-making skills, with the ability to lead cross-functional teams, influence executive leadership, and drive enterprise-wide cybersecurity initiatives in a highly regulated banking environment.