Disaster Recovery Manager

American Electric Power • Columbus, OH

1d • $136,539 - $177,503 • Onsite

About The Position

The Disaster Recovery Manager is responsible for establishing, implementing, and governing AEP's enterprise Disaster Recovery (DR) program. This role develops and maintains recovery policy, standards, governance processes, training, testing, and assurance activities to ensure technology recovery capabilities align with business continuity requirements and enterprise risk tolerance. This position serves as the enterprise accountability for DR governance and drives implementation of a centralized program across Technology, Cybersecurity, Business Units, Operational Technology, and third-party service providers. The role establishes consistent recovery requirements, oversees program effectiveness, and integrates DR expectations into technology lifecycle management, architecture reviews, application onboarding, cloud adoption, vendor resiliency, dependency mapping, and broader operational resilience activities. The position does not directly execute technology recovery activities; it governs readiness, validation, assurance, and continuous improvement and is part of an enterprise emergency response team.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Business, Risk Management, Emergency Management, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent combination of education, certifications, and relevant experience.
• Minimum 8-10+ years of progressive experience in Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, Technology Resilience, Operational Resilience, Cyber Recovery, Technology Risk, IT Operations, Infrastructure, Cloud, or related disciplines, including demonstrated experience leading enterprise-scale, cross-functional programs, governance initiatives, recovery-readiness activities, or teams across technology, cybersecurity, business, risk, compliance, and third-party stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

• Utility industry and NERC CIP familiarity
• ServiceNow/CMDB experience
• Cloud/SaaS resilience experience
• Audit remediation or regulatory compliance experience
• Certifications such as CBCP, MBCP, MBCI, CDRE, CISM, CISSP, CRISC, PMP, ITIL, or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Establish, implement, and maintain AEP's enterprise Disaster Recovery program, including governance framework, policies, standards, procedures, operating model, roles, accountability, control objectives, recovery tiers, and minimum expectations for technology recovery readiness.
• Set and govern standards for technology-related Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs), service recovery requirements, business criticality alignment, and periodic validation of recovery objectives.
• Partner with Technology, Cybersecurity, Business Units, Operational Technology, Enterprise Architecture, Third-Party Risk, Procurement, and operational stakeholders to align recovery capabilities with critical business services, business continuity needs, and enterprise risk tolerance.
• Integrate DR requirements into system design, architecture reviews, application onboarding, cloud adoption, technology lifecycle management, dependency mapping, ServiceNow/CMDB data governance, and change processes.
• Establish governance and minimum resilience requirements for cloud services, SaaS providers, managed service providers, and third-party technology vendors supporting critical business functions.
• Manage integration of crown jewel, critical data, and cyber resilience requirements into enterprise DR standards, testing and assurance activities.
• Develop and oversee the enterprise DR testing, validation, and assurance strategy, including test scope, frequency, success criteria, pass/fail expectations, scenario design, lessons learned, evidence retention, after-action reporting, and corrective action management.
• Coordinate with Cybersecurity and Technology teams to incorporate ransomware, data corruption, cyber recovery, immutable backup, clean-room recovery, and forensic evidence considerations into recovery standards and exercises.
• Manage KPIs, KRIs, executive dashboards, and reporting mechanisms to communicate DR readiness, program maturity, risks, gaps, exceptions, corrective actions, and audit/regulatory commitments.
• Define and govern enterprise DR training standards, role-based readiness expectations, curriculum requirements, and governance controls to ensure training content aligns with DR policy, testing strategy, exercise outcomes, audit findings, and program maturity needs, while partnering with the designated training team for delivery and completion management.

Benefits

• The Physical Demand Level for this job is: S – Sedentary Work: Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally (Occasionally: activity or condition exists up to 1/3 of the time) and/or a negligible amount of force frequently. (Frequently: activity or condition exists from 1/3 to 2/3 of the time) to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects, including the human body. Sedentary work involves sitting most of the time but may involve walking or standing for brief periods of time. Jobs are sedentary if walking and standing are required only occasionally, and all other sedentary criteria are met.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior