Corporate Vice President - Head of Crisis & Incident Management

New York Life•New York, NY

48d•$160,000 - $228,500•Hybrid

About The Position

As part of Risk Management, you'll play a pivotal role in safeguarding New York Life's strategic goals. By analyzing and mitigating potential risks, you contribute to three crucial areas: strengthening the company's defenses, informing sound business decisions, and advancing risk capabilities across the organization. Your expertise empowers informed risk-taking, fostering sustainable growth and protecting the financial security of millions of policy owners. New York Life is seeking a strategic, execution-oriented Head of Crisis and Incident Management to lead the enterprise-wide crisis and incident management program. This leader will be responsible for building, sustaining, and continuously enhancing crisis capabilities through an all-hazards approach. The successful candidate will oversee the centralized Crisis and Incident Management team, drive program strategy and execution, and help lead the enterprise through high-impact events, including cyber, physical security, environmental, fraud, public health, technology, and third-party related incidents. The role is accountable for organizational readiness, response coordination, preparedness activities, and monitoring of emerging risks that may impact the company. This position requires a strong crisis leader who can operate effectively at both the strategic and tactical levels. The leader must be able to engage senior executives, including the Executive Management Committee (EMC / C-suite), translate complex issues into clear decisions, and execute through teams, partners, vendors, and business unit incident leads. The role will champion crisis strategy, lead enterprise simulations, strengthen response discipline, and build risk awareness across the company. This role carries an explicit on-call requirement and after-hours availability obligation. The Head of Crisis and Incident Management is expected to respond to crises and incidents as they arise, including evenings, weekends, and holidays, as needed. Candidates must be fully prepared for and committed to this before applying.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required
12+ years in crisis management, continuity, incident response, or enterprise risk within large organizations.
Demonstrated experience leading real-time responses and engaging senior executives.
Expertise in designing crisis simulations, training, and executive engagement.
Deep understanding of all-hazards crisis planning and operational resilience.
Strong leadership, coaching, and decision-making under pressure.
Excellent communicator with influence across levels, including executive teams.
Experience collaborating across Security, Facilities, Technology, and Risk functions.
Ability to synthesize open-source intelligence and threat feeds to inform decisions.
Proficiency using Microsoft Office tools and AI platforms, including ChatGPT, Claude, or similar tools, to support analysis, planning, communications, reporting, and program execution
Flexibility to respond to crisis events at short notice, including off-hours

Nice To Haves

advanced degree in emergency management, business continuity, or related field preferred.
Regulated industry background (e.g., insurance or financial services) preferred.
Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), or similar.
ICS/NIMS training and FEMA EMI certifications (e.g., ICS-100, ICS-200, IS-700, continuity planning, disaster recovery), reflecting proficiency in emergency coordination and response frameworks.

Responsibilities

Lead the enterprise crisis and incident management program, advancing organizational readiness and coordinated response across all hazard types, including natural disasters, cyber incidents, manmade threats, public health emergencies, and third-party events.
Maintain the crisis management plan, aligning with best practices and evolving risks.
Provide leadership during major incidents; act as the senior escalation point for complex crises.
Oversee daily team operations and embedded response leads across business functions.
Harmonize enterprise and local response plans and escalation procedures.
Design and deliver enterprise crisis simulations and tabletop exercises involving senior leadership.
Enhance crisis response strategies across business units and support teams.
Own the crisis and incident management model and framework, ensuring response teams, including local incident managers and crisis site leaders in the business areas, are aligned to program standards, roles, and expectations.
Oversee the Resilience Operations Center (ROC) and maintain situational awareness via threat intelligence and internal monitoring tools
Collaborate with Security, Risk, Technology, Facilities, Legal, Compliance, and Communications.
Ensure coordinated incident messaging and response strategies.
Maintain external crisis management partnerships and share cross-sector intelligence.
Manage vendors and platforms such as Everbridge for crisis communication and coordination.
Represent the program in governance forums and enterprise-level committees.
Lead post-incident reviews and integrate lessons into future plans.
Support reporting requirements for regulators, audits, and the Board.